One truth the samurai of the fourth millennium have come to finally accept – albeit a lot of them begrudgingly – is that much power comes from money. While Bushido and glory are still important concerns, nobody ignores the primary importance of how much koku a clan can bring in. And while the Mantis, the Crane, and the Crab all have many ways to make money, they do not have the one advantage the Scorpion Clan has possessed since time immemorial: extensive connections with crime mobs. With commerce expanding to levels never seen before, criminality has expanded to match, and the Scorpion have a hand in almost all rackets, smuggling operations, and similar activities – backing their efforts with the power of a Great Plan. Uncharted stations are one of the strengths of the Scorpion Clan, for they rarely wait for the Imperial Exploration Corps to establish new bases before creating their own secret locations. Their Soshi and Yogo shugenja have also developed the only cloaking devices available (so far as anyone knows), while the Kochako give them a constant edge in cyberwarfare.
The Scorpion, of course, remain masters of unconventional warfare, and their black ops and saboteur teams can cause more havoc than ever before, thanks to radiant weapons and other advanced technological equipment. The Scorpion are thus far more dangerous than their limited numbers might suggest; they are the third-smallest Great Clan, ahead of only the Phoenix and Dragon, yet no other clan will confront them without great caution. The Scorpion don’t win wars with strength of arms; they kill you with their brains before you’ve ever fired a shot.
The Scorpion’s main system orbits the gigantic red star for which it is named: Bayushi’s Eye. A small planet in a habitable zone has become home to the largest city in the Empire of Emerald Stars, earning the name the World of Dreams. With skyscrapers almost literally higher than the sky itself and urban zones spanning the length of entire continents, the planet houses billions of people from all the Great Clans (and even a few from other cultures and races), but remains under the ironclad control of the Scorpion. Low taxes and lax security have attracted investment from around the galaxy, and many consider the World of Dreams to be the true capital of the Empire, although more traditional samurai chafe at this notion. The vast city-world has a culture of its own, and one would need several lifetimes to fully explore it, with many new buildings appearing almost daily. The World of Dreams draws so much attention that little else is known about the Scorpion Clan and its settlements (save that they have them) – which is probably by design.
Families: Bayushi, Shosuro, Soshi, Yogo
Naval Philosophy: The Scorpion found their place relatively
quickly when it came to naval philosophy: recon craft, recon craft, and more recon craft. Scorpion
long-range intelligence gathering vessels may not win many fights, but they’re almost impossible to catch.
That’s if you can even find them in the first place; the Scorpion are also the only clan to have created and
implemented cloaking technology. Large-scale fleet actions are all but unheard of among the Scorpion, which
suits them just fine; why fight your enemies face-to-face when you can use your ships for tactical sabotage
missions and defeat them before a shot is even fired? The Scorpion also have one other advantage: they are
the only known navy with access to cloaking technology (which does have the drawback of being mutually
exclusive with shield generators).
Ship Bonus: Gain two Free Raises to the Electronic Warfare action.
May use the Jam Communications action as a Free Action.
New Family: Kochako
Kochako Family Bonus: +1 Awareness
The Kochako family almost met their demise thanks to the efforts of Shosuro Hido in the 12th century. The
consummate survivors barely hung on, but after Hido was thwarted with the help of the last Kochako, it
became clear that the Scorpion needed more oversight. The Kochako were thus raised up to ensure a) that the
Scorpion stopped infighting all the time, and b) that the Clan would never again threaten the Empire itself.
Since the dawn of space exploration, they’ve become masterful computer experts and wielders of technological
weaponry, giving the Scorpion a distinct advantage in the field of electronic information-gathering.