House Rules, Custom Schools, and so forth
Soshi Yamabushi
New Path.
Entry: Soshi Shugenja 2
Exit: Kuroiban. The Soshi Yamabushi school was created with all sorts of dishonorable foes -- including the Tsukai and Shadowlands creatures -- in mind. As such, they always become part of the Black Watch.
Special: Only Scorpion Shugenja of the Soshi Shugenja School may take this path.
The Soshi Yamabushi is a school dedicated to the art of war. The great scholars have said that there are only three aspects of war, and that all three of them must be mastered: Power, the ability to affect one's opponent; Endurance, the ability to outlast ones opponent; and Deception, the ability to deceive your opponent while remaining genuinely aware of what your opponent is up to.
The Soshi Yamabushi school focuses on the third of these three skills, believing that no Clan -- Great or Minor -- should be better at deception in war than the Scorpion Clan.
The history of this school is clouded in mystery: no one outside of the Scorpion Clan knows when they were created or why, nor wether they are effective or not. At this point, that is exactly how they like it.
Rules:
Soshi Yamabushi are particularly good at Mass Battle (the mechanics for this vary depending on which mass battle system is being used; at this point, since no PCs specialize in Battle and that's not what this campaign is about, it's "whatever's good for the story"), especially traps and countering enemy advantages with deception. Several advantages, including superior numbers and unusual power (Magic, Maho, etc.) do not work against a Yamabushi. While they have abilities in battle, their real bonus is access to secret spells that are only given to Shugenja of this school.
Yamabushi may replace their Water ring with their Air ring and Perception with Awareness for any Battle Roll or any roll involved in Mass Combat. [And something regarding Stealth ...]
Notes:
Because this school is more of a philosophy than a set of prescribed skills and talents, the skills one chooses to take will determine how they use it. Thus a generalist may learn Athletics, Stealth, Spellcraft, and Battle to be a good scout, a good advisor to the general, or be to join the other Shugenja in battle; whereas one who only wishes to join the other shugenja in battle will learn a little Stealth, but focuses primarily on Battle, and Spellcraft.
As the name implies, they do all of their training in the mountains and do the typical "yamabushi" things (such as meditation under waterfalls) in addition to some special Scorpion things.