War in Rokugan

[Vutall]

War in Rokugan
War is possible in Rokugan only during the spring, summer, and autumn. To march in the winter is folly, for the heavy snows, fierce ice, and bitter cold in most parts of Rokugan make travel perilous for a marching army. Where it doesn’t snow, such as on the coasts and the Islands of Spice and Silk, the passage of armies is often difficult or impossible thanks to thick jungle, sandy or rocky beaches, cliffs and bluffs, or river deltas. Few battles occur in the spring, as honorable Rokugani forces refrain from making war by ancient custom and common wisdom. The heat and humidity of summer see the most battles, samurai and peasant blood mixing in the dust brought on by the frequent droughts. Particularly long campaigns may last until autumn, though the crop harvest and tax collection provide a strong incentive to bring wars to a swift conclusion.

Battles in Rokugan most often take place along roads or outside fortified castles, providing an advantageous retreat for the losing side. Protracted sieges are rare, because they are extremely costly for both sides—feeding an entrenched army is expensive, and logistics become nearly impossible during the winter. Most armies in Rokugan are ill-equipped to break sieges—and while the Crab do have large numbers of dedicated siege specialists, they are usually preoccupied with the defense of the Wall.

Few battles end in an absolute rout. Most battles are won when one side accomplishes the goals it came to achieve via the completion of strategic objectives by leaders. There is considerable renown to be gained in being the one to carry out the commander’s orders, and in some armies, battlefield leaders compete against one another as fervently as they do against the enemy

Emerald Armies
Armies in Rokugan are primarily infantry forces of ashigaru, or semi-professional peasant soldiers, and con-scripts. Ashigaru are usually part-time soldiers who return to their villages when not serving. Conscripts, by contrast, are generally ill-equipped and untrained, sent to the front line with a spear, often to die.

Many of the Great Clans have families of hereditary ashigaru who have served them as guards and magistrates’ dōshin assistants in peacetime for generations. These ashigaru take a fierce pride in their work. Still, in war, ashigaru must rely on divine fortune or overwhelming numbers to have any hope against fully armored bushi, and only then under competent leaders.

True cavalry tactics are only possible with Unicorn steeds, bred from full-size stock found outside the Empire. The native Rokugani pony isn’t hardy enough to support full-scale cavalry warfare, although it sees use with scouts and mounted infantry. In the centuries since the Unicorn returned to the Empire, other Rokugani armies have instituted effective anticavalry training and tactics—usually after a brutal and humiliating defeat—but few field a large-scale cavalry force

Rokugan is a feudal society, and this forms the basis for its armies’ organization. Each provincial daimyō is responsible for calling up, training, and equipping their own forces drawn from the villages and the manor lords under their rule. These forces also include any guards they choose to redeploy from their castle. The result is forces of various strengths comprising spear-wielding ashigaru, sword- and bow-equipped samurai, and possibly mounted contingents and shugenja. Each unit has a designated leader, or kashira, who directs it in accordance with the general’s instructions. In addition to fighters, units include horn blowers, drummers, and banner bearers, who are all integral to the kashira’s direction of the force during battle and for providing identification to the tacticians overseeing the fight. In particularly large armies, the number of pikemen or samurai necessitate an expanded command structure in which captains (taisa), sergeants (gunsō), or both assume command over the kashira. While many daimyō are trained in the art of warfare themselves, they may defer to an appointed general, such as their hatamoto, to determine strategy and tactics in their stead.

When more than one daimyō are called to the field, their forces fight together but preserve their original command structure, with each lord relaying instructions to their subordinates. Regardless of the size of the force, however, the formation of the units remains predictable. Spear ashigaru deploy in rectangular blocks, wider than they are deep. Rows of archers arrayed behind the ashigaru rain missiles down upon onrushing forces, but once these forces collide, each breaks apart into masses of soldiers fighting in brutal and bloody personal combats of a thousand tiny melees. This continues until the general signals a surrender, until every soldier is dead, or until the peasant ashigaru break and run—a samurai who flees prays every bushi is equally without honor.

The number of foot soldiers and samurai a lord can field is restricted by Imperial edicts meant to mitigate the risk of outright war between hostile neighbors. Violating these restrictions without permission may result in censure, loss of status and holdings, or even direct intervention from the Imperial Legions. They are root-ed in the might and authority of the Hantei, who holds the Mandate of Heaven.

The Army of the Emperor
The Imperial Legions differ greatly from their clan army counterparts, given that they rep-resent a single, unified force drawn from all the clans and led by the Emerald Champion. There have always been ten distinct legions with the capability of fielding up to ten thou-sand soldiers each, although the actual size of the legions has varied over the years, and such a force has not been seen in centuries. Each legion is subdivided into ten regiments, which are further separated into five companies each, with platoons below that. Commanders are drawn from the Seppun family as well as the best and brightest the clans can offer. Most of the samurai in the legions are fielded from the Lion Clan, and lords may choose to send peasants to help fill out the legions’ strength as well. The ashigaru who make up these legions are as close as one can get to career soldiers among the peasants, as they sign up for a renewable six-year term and do not return home until their assignments are complete.

The bureaucracy required to maintain, coordinate, and equip so many soldiers is the province of the Otomo family, with help from the more analytically inclined Miya and Seppun, with additional support from the Great Clans that waxes and wanes with the overall size of the army. There are estimated to be twice as many bureaucrats toiling in the capital as there are soldiers marching in the field, and even more peasants who assist the legions in the field with cooking, cleaning, and gear maintenance.

In times of peace, the Imperial Legions may be repurposed to complete public works, making it even more important that the courtiers of the clans are able to catch the ear of an Otomo official or the Emerald Champion

Dust of the Battlefield
Following the conflict of the fourth century, when the Yasuki War between the Crane and the Crab rent the Empire and caused lasting damage, Emperor Hantei Fujiwa declared that the Great Clans could not loose their full might upon one another. Since that time, all conflicts between the Great Clans have been “minor” border skirmishes and limited wars. Although the sag-es deem the current era to be the “Thousand Years of Peace,” battles are a constant presence in Rokugani life. Between court and battlefield, winter and summer, the Great Clans struggle for dominance and the favor of the Hantei.

Most wars are fought with relatively small armies of a few hundred or thousand on each side, but these are a near-constant occurrence in the spring and summer months. Only rarely do the Great Clans unleash their full might, and this is traditionally against foes they view as inhuman: Shadowlands armies, the Bloodspeak-er Iuchiban’s forces, or gaijin legions. The Crab exist in a state of constant readiness, while the Lion cross the Empire to enforce the will of the Emperor when the Imperial Legions are unavailable or insufficient in their duties. The Lion Clan takes its duty to protect the Empire seriously, and over the centuries has engaged gaijin forces both within and beyond Rokugan's borders. Battle is ever present, and it is a rare year that all of the Great Clans do not engage at least in small skirmishes during the warm months. No few of these are internal civil wars between clan families over some piece of land or point of honor.

Lion-Phoenix War
In the early centuries of the Empire, the Lion had exhausted their own food resources, and too many of their farmers had been conscripted as ashigaru. As a result, the clan champion decided to expand into the Crane lands in the waning summer months and claim the harvest. The Crane maneuvered for months in the Imperial Court until they forced the Lion to sign a non-aggression treaty. The Lion promptly invaded the Valley of the Two Generals, marching upon Phoenix lands: their true intent all along. Trapped by their own non-aggression treaty, the Crane watched helplessly as the Lion besieged their Phoenix allies at Shiro Shiba. The Lion slaughtered much of the tiny remnant of the Ki-Rin Clan, who had stayed behind while the rest of their clan traveled, eventually settling near Shiro Shiba under Phoenix protection. The Crane did, however, attempt a tactic that would continue to serve them extremely well in later centuries: they bled the Lion dry in the courts, ensuring that the Crane’s surplus of rice did not benefit the Lion economically. Cutting off Lion supply lines in other lands, the Crane forced the Lion to attempt to cross their lands. The Crane promptly cited a violation of their agreement and threatened full war.

Faced with a two-fronted assault, the Lion called a truce, and peace was restored. The Lion were grant-ed the Ki-Rin lands, and the remnant Ki-Rin samurai became the Fox Clan and were given independent status and new lands in another part of the Empire. The war is also notable for a display of compassion: when Isawa Tomokazu sought vengeance against the Lion for their aggression, the Crane Champion Doji Ritsuko rode to stop him, but she refused to duel. She endured his elemental assault, yet refused to fall, and after days of her passive resistance, the kami refused Tomokazu's requests to smite her. With this, the Phoenix forces lost the will to fight and surrendered. This was hailed by all three belligerent clans as a masterful display of strategy: the Victory with No Strike, achieving one’s goals on the battlefield by breaking the enemy’s will.

Crane-Crab War (the Yasuki War)
In the waning years of the fourth century, Emperor Han-tei Fujiwa sought to check the power of a secret cabal of samurai called the Gozoku, which had usurped his own authority. He decided to do so by breaking the internal unity of one of the chief Gozoku backers, the Crane Clan, driving a wedge between the courtly Doji family and the mercantile Yasuki family, which was then a part of the Crane. Under Fujiwa’s bidding, the loy-al Crab Clan expanded its borders, encroaching upon Crane lands and emboldening the Lion. Open warfare erupted when the Crab seized the Yasuki lands, claiming the Crane had no need for them.

In truth, Fujiwa’s machinations had worked too well. The Yasuki daimyō had a longstanding rift with the Crane Champion. Having been told repeatedly that he was “of no service to his lord,” the Yasuki daimyō decided to interpret the comment as a commandment and not an indictment. Swearing service to the Crab Champion, the Yasuki family defected, and all attempts at peace negotiations failed or were sabotaged by out-side forces.

Ultimately, the war became a massive economic drain on all of Rokugan, as the Yasuki and the Crane locked down a major portion of the Imperial rice crop. The war, which would have long-lasting consequences, demonstrated the power of open and full-scale warfare. In the war’s aftermath, Fujiwa issued an edict declaring that no clan could bring its full forces to bear against another. Still, for all the long-term damage it did, the war was of little benefit to the Emperor even in the short term: the Gozoku had not been checked, and they grew in power until they eventually rendered Fujiwa a figurehead. The Yasuki have remained a Crab Clan family ever since the war, and little love is lost between Crab and Crane to this day.

Dragon-Lion War
It is not spoken of in the Imperial Histories, but those scrutinizing the ledgers of families during the seventh century see a horrifying decline in the fortunes of every clan, both material and abstract in bloodlines. This was the result of the Great Famine: a decade of starvation, disease, and open and total warfare, exacerbated by a tyrannical Emerald Champion and a weak Emperor. When heavy rains ruined crops across the Empire, the already-poor Dragon Clan asked for a lien on their yearly taxes to stave off starvation. In response, the Emerald Champion levied further fines upon them, and refugees streamed from the Dragon lands into those of the Lion in search of food. When the Lion confronted the Dragon over their failure to act, the incensed Clan Champion Togashi Toshimasa led an attack into Lion territory, seizing great amounts of food. The Lion, though taxed by keeping the peace and putting down a full-scale peasant revolt, easily overthrew the Drag-on invaders, who were ill used to defending them-selves within unfamiliar lands. Only the intervention of the Phoenix kept the Lion at bay, and the Dragon refugees were allowed into the lands of Shiba and Isawa’s clan

The Battle of White Stag
In the middle of the fifth century, Rokugan had one of its worst gaijin encounters. Foreigners to Rokugan had been encountered before, but when ships from a distant kingdom sailed into the Bay of the Golden Sun and attempted to open trade and diplomatic relations with the Empire, it ignited a terrible conflict.

At first, the Empress welcomed these visitors and gave them permission to reside in the capital and conduct trade, but after two years she abruptly—and for reasons known only to a select few—declared an edict outlawing such trade. The gaijin refused to accept this and attacked Otosan Uchi, the Imperial Capital. The initial attack was horrific, though history has obscured the exact losses

The city’s defenders rose to avenge the Emerald Empire and managed to defeat and drive off the gaijin ships. Oddly, a Dragon Clan shugenja named Agasha Kasuga helped the surviving gaijin to safely escape. Later, in private audience with the Emperor, Kasuga was pardoned, again for reasons not shared. Kasuga and his followers were granted minor clan status, and so the Tortoise were born as a secret defense against further gaijin activities that might imperil the Empire

War and the Clans
The clans of Rokugan vary greatly in both doctrine and degree of militarization. All maintain standing armies and a system of command, but each clan approaches battle strategies and tactics from a different view.

Crab Clan
The Crab are an extremely militaristic clan, but this is a tradition maintained out of necessity. The corrupted creatures that dwell in the Shadowlands are dangerous beyond compare: innumerable hordes bolstered by invulnerable giants and emboldened by the insidious power of the Taint. Crab military units are small, tightly knit, and paranoid, clad in Kaiu-forged steel and wielding heavy weapons like ōtsuchi or tetsubō alongside the more fragile but traditional katana. The Crab have molded their weapons and tactics to fight an inhuman enemy, and while they adapt poorly to battling other samurai, Crab bushi see more battle in a year than most see in a decade. Masters of both laying and withstanding siege, the Crab rarely step away from their duty at the Wall to make war in Rokugan, but their raw strength and determination are terrifying when they do.

Crane Clan
The strengths of the Crane are in court and in the art of the duel, not on the battlefield proper. These strengths are reflected in their strategy and tactics: a Crane commander might challenge their counterpart to a duel and deprive the enemy of a leader while Crane bushi maintain a defensive scorched-earth posture and courtiers grind the economy of the enemy clan to a halt in courts across the Empire. This approach, and impeccable training of their heavy infantry, helps to ameliorate the greatest weakness of the Crane: numbers. Although the clan proper approaches the battle-field with unimpeachable honor, its bannerless scouts are infamous for employing questionable tactics, such as sabotaging weapons, laying traps for marching columns, and poisoning supplies in advance of the opposing army’s main force.

Dragon Clan
More so than any other clan, the forces of the Dragon Clan are unique reflections of the lords who lead them. Some daimyō focus on the teachings of the Tao of Shinsei to achieve victory, while others place their hope in the Agasha family’s extraordinary talent for metal-lurgy and weaponsmithing. Still more daimyō focus on drilling troops in a wide variety of environments, and some lords even deploy warrior monks from the Togashi Order into their battle lines. With this esoteric training and the tendency of the Dragon to train their bushi alongside shugenja and ise zumi—warrior monks—small units of the clan are terrifyingly effective and unique opponents. With fast and powerful attacks, Dragon armies separate their enemies and defeat each individual unit over lightning-quick campaigns.

Lion Clan
The only school dedicated to the study of war exists within Lion lands, bearing the name of the clan’s found-er, the most militaristic of the Kami. True to Akodo’s teachings, the Lion are the most heavily militarized clan in the Empire, boasting a massive army, a relentless drilling routine, and an economy designed to sup-port war. Every aspect of a Lion bushi’s life supports this focus: harsh duty rotations and the daily practice of kata interweave with prayers to martial ancestors at highly elaborate shrines, broken only by pursuits such as Go or shogi to hone the bushi’s tactical and strategic instincts. When the Lion call upon the full force of their vassals, their armies are huge, and they use their strength in numbers to overwhelm their opponents with classic and time-honored stratagems. They show great pride in their accomplishments throughout the long history of their clan; as a consequence, the Lion are slow to innovate, and they discourage unorthodox strategies. Still, they develop counterstrategies with alarming alacrity

Phoenix Clan
Peace is the way of the Phoenix, not war. Their engagements in conflict are few and limited, designed to end the conflict with a settlement and a recognition of peace as the wiser course. However, when they are forced into total war, the Phoenix march to war along-side the very powers of nature. The Phoenix Champion, normally subordinate to the Elemental Masters, assumes a voice equal to the entire Council of Five. The champion and the Elemental Guard personally take the field for important engagements, unleashing the prayers of master shugenja and the full might of the kami upon opposing armies, warping the land and permanently altering the nature of the area’s spiritual makeup. Such is the skill of the Elemental Guard that they can gain the blessings and favor of the kami within the enemy’s own territory. It’s customary for every Phoenix to pray for forgiveness prior to a battle.

Scorpion Clan
Deception is the way of the Scorpion, and this applies in war as well as in peace. Scorpion commanders delight in confounding enemy scouts, spreading false battle plans, and sending opposing armies in divergent directions, revealing the Scorpion force only when it is time to draw blade from scabbard. The Scorpion’s own scouts are impeccably trained, buoyed by an array of spies and informants in a net-work that stretches across class and rank, field and palace. Those facing the Underhand of the Emperor must guard their plans with zeal and caution, adopting the ways of their enemy lest battle secrets be strangely anticipated or a commander fall prey to a poisoned bowl of noodles. Naturally, this can never be traced back to the Scorpion. When they do engage in battle, the Scorpion field a well-trained yet largely traditional-ist army reminiscent of both the Lion and Crane armies and suited for warfare on the battlefield and off, wheth-er in the dead of night or the bright morning.

Unicorn Clan
Among the most militant clans in the Empire, the Uni-corn have a spirit of steel forged in the fires of distant suns. The absorption of foreign peoples such as the Ujik made the clan far more aggressive. Since their return to the Empire, the Unicorn haven’t changed their battle tactics, yet their superior bows and steeds mean that few can truly equal them. Cavalry has always been the heart of the Unicorn, and every engagement and tactic reinforces this point. The Unicorn pin their enemies with rapid-marching infantry and rely on decisive charges of heavy cavalry to win the day, a spearhead of steel and steed slamming into its foes without mercy. Talisman-wielding shugenja enhance the mobility of both infantry and cavalry, and the Utaku war steeds are the finest horses in the Empire, their breeding and heritage a closely guarded secret. No Rokugani pony can equal the horses of the Unicorn

The Minor Clans
Each Minor Clan has the relative strength of a single Great Clan family. While some are more martial than others, few are able to field an army of any great strength or marshal more than a few hundred to fight at any one time. Only the Hare, Falcon, Dragonfly, and Mantis Clans have sizeable forces, and these fall far short of those of the Great Clans, with the exception of the Mantis navy. The Minor Clans are largely protected by an edict of the Emperor, distinct from other rules limiting the military powers of the clans, established when an aggressive and expansionist Lion Clan tried to seize the lands of the Fox Clan. Absent this edict or in violation of it, the Minor Clans are shockingly vulnerable.

The Gods of War
As shugenja must beseech the spirits for their aid, the limitations of the kami’s support becomes particularly pronounced in warfare. Because they are appealing to the local spirits, the defending army has a serious “home-field advantage” for the simple fact that their shugenja have existing relationships with their region’s kami. In other words, it is hard to convince the local earth kami to rain stone death upon the inhabitants who routinely give them offerings and maintain their shrines. The blood and death that taint a battlefield may even attract the attention of kansen—Tainted kami—as the carnage wears on, disrupting elemental forces and hindering shugenja. There are a few notable exceptions, however, among the Fortunes. Hachiman, the Fortune of Warfare, and the Fortunes of swords and bravery are much more likely to answer the prayers of non-local shugenja in battle and intervene on their behalf to secure victory.

As a result of these limitations, shugenja cannot be treated as regular assets in most armies. Instead, they often work closely with the commander, using their own expertise in dealing with the spirits to determine how they can be most effective. A commander who tries to order their shugenja around like bushi will quickly discover that their their miraculous powers are limited by the willingness of the spirits to act, and oftentimes, the best way to use a shugenja is simply to let them act on their own discretion. Regardless of where they are placed in a battle, shugenja are accompanied by one or more yōjimbō, who are dedicated to preserving the shugenja’s life even if the rest of the unit were to fall.

The Elemental Guard
In times of grave trouble, the Elemental Academies of the Isawa deploy their most talented shugenja into units each dedicated to a single element. Although they have not had to call upon the raw power of a firestorm or tsunami in generations, these shugenja and their dedicated Shiba protectors are a truly terrible force to behold.