This is a good book that gives extensive treatment to the great clans of Rokugan.

My one disappointment was that the description for this item mentions coverage of the vassal families that serve the great clans (it is one of three bullet points on the back of the book). However, the book only provides about a paragraph for each vassal family. While this book included one or two families not listed in my other books, the "Secrets of the..." clan book series from 2nd ed. L5R provided much more information regarding these families (i.e.- If you wanted to know about Doji family vassals, you would find much more information in "Secrets of the Crane"). This is especially relevant, as no mechanical considerations are provided for any of the vassals in this book. The advantage this book has over the "Secrets..." books is that this book lists the vassal families from ALL of the great clans.

Ultimately, it is THE book for 4th edition L5R regarding the great clans, but if you are looking for vassal family information, you would be better served elsewhere.

http://www.teilzeithelden.de/2014/09/19/neu-in-rokugan-diese-legend-of-the-five-rings-erweiterungen-lohnen-sich-teil-1/

Diese Erweiterung wirft einen detaillierteren Blick auf die großen Clans, die die Politik von Rokugan bestimmen. Sie sind die Erben der gefallenen Kami (Geister), die in der Frühzeit vor über tausend Jahren das Kaiserreich gegründet haben. Auf 304 Seiten wird jeder Clan ausführlich vorgestellt. Dabei ist ihre Rivalität untereinander eines der Hauptthemen des Buches, das dankbarerweise weitgehend ohne Klischees auskommt.

The Great Clans beginnt die Vorstellung jedes Clans mit dessen Geschichte. So werden historische Ereignisse, die bereits aus dem Grundregelwerk oder Imperial Histories bekannt sind, aus der Perspektive eines Clans neu erzählt und gedeutet. Dabei werden auch aktuelle Entwicklungen des fortlaufenden Meta-Plots erwähnt. Jede Familie des Clans erhält eine detaillierte Beschreibung samt Vasallenfamilien , militärischer Besonderheiten, Truppenstärken, Taktik, und besondere Einheiten.

Eine Besonderheit des Buches sind Helden und Vorfahren. Diese werden für jeden Clan mit Beschreibung und Werten aufgeführt. Spielercharaktere können durch die neue Heritage Table-Mechanik die Taten der eigenen Vorfahren auswürfeln und zufällig bestimmte Skill-Ränge oder Vorteile erhalten. Daneben hält The Great Clans eine Vielzahl brauchbarer neuer Schulen, Pfade und Kata bereit, um Charaktere weiter zu spezialisieren.

Brandneu ist die Beschreibung des Spider-Clans, der im Zuge des Metaplots von L5R aus Samurai der Shadowlands entstanden ist. Das führt die in Enemies of the Empire erwähnten Ereignisse fort und erweitert Rokugan um einen neuen Clan, dessen Ansichten und Methoden mehr als zweifelhaft sind. Auch wichtige NSCs der Shadowlands wie Chuda Ruri und Daigotsu werden dabei mit Werten versehen.

Fazit: Generell brauchbar. The Great Clans kann Spielrunden dabei helfen, sich in die Identität eines Clans einzufinden und diesen mit Details auszugestalten. Das ist besonders dann stark, wenn alle Charaktere aus demselben Clan stammen und einen Hintergrund teilen. Auch die Beschreibung des neuen Spider-Clans ist nützlich, da dieser im Grundregelwerk fehlt.

Five Rings? Five stars! In my opinion, this book is a must have for anyone who is playing this game, or anyone who has any interest in the setting. The writing in the book is detailed and rich. The extra options are incredible and very, very fun.

The book is beautiful. The text is well written and grabs your interest from the start. The book goes deeper into the histories of the clans and really brings the conflicts between them and their origins to life. I especially enjoyed reading the Crane section, as I'm currently playing a Crane character. The information in this book gave me additional options and ideas to bring my character to life and make him much more interesting.

The Great Clans is a book without an ounce of fat. Every bit of fluff serves to further insight to the clan, and the accompanying mechanics gives ways for players to further customize their characters without resorting to having to pick up stuff from other Clans just to be unique. The writing is clear, informative and displays the love and dedication of the authors to a setting that they are eager to share to the reader. As with all of L5R's 4th Edition books, The Great Clans is also a work of art, featuring beautiful artwork, clear layouts and font choices that aren't a pain to read. GMs and Players alike will find a ton of things that can enrich their campaigns, and Alderac continues their winning streak with the 4th Edition of Legend of the Five Rings as the best edition in the history of the L5R RPG.

This is an excerpt of my full review from my blog. If you'd like to read the entire review, kindly visit: http://wp.me/p5H0U-Rr

The Great Clans is an amazingly useful sourcebook for Legends of the Five Rings, while not quite a necessity to own to run or play the game it comes close. It expands on both the Great Clans and the world they have made, providing a wealth of information and even some useful new mechanics.

The Great Clans, a sourcebook for the Legends of the Five Rings RPG (3rd edition) is a 306-page PDF (304 pages if you remove the cover), written by Shawn Carman, Rob Hobart, Brian Yoon, Kevin Blake, Nancy Sauer, Ryan Reese, Jacob Ross, Max Lemaire, Dave Laderoute, Rusty Priske, Mike Brodu, and Daniel Briscoe and published by AEG.

The layout is a straightforward design taken directly from the print version of the book, with a 2-column layout (and occasional one column commentary). The Great Class is lavishly illustrated with full color art throughout. The table of contents is complete and there is an index as well, so finding what you are looking for should be easy but you have to use that as the PDF book-marking only takes you to the start of each chapter.

As it says, this book is full of information on the nine Great Clans of the Empire of Rokugan. Primary, it is all general information, history of the clan, background of the families, useful cultural notes and roleplaying hooks. However, each family gets some new schools, new paths, new kata and additional ancestors for those who like mechanics to spice up things.

The background information on the clans is amazingly useful for both players and game masters, expanding on the very brief sections in the core book. In each clan’s section there is cultural information, such as courtly affairs in the Crane section and additional information on the tradition of ancestor worship in the Lion section.

Appendices handle the new(ish) Spider Clan, the various Vassal families of the great clans and the return of the heritage tables. Heritage tables are a way to give a character an additional roleplaying hook that may be positive, negative or a mixture of the two expressed as the character’s linage (such as an ancestor was a famous poet or a well-known coward). Each Clan gets its own table, there are some slight imbalances between the clans until you come to the Spider, who get two tables of bonuses and one of mixed good and bad things, but even then the good side far outweighs the bad. The Spider tables should not be used as written, as they are just a guaranteed mechanic bonus for the character, unlike all of the other heritage tables.

Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review. Also, I am friends with several of the authors, but I hope that has not shaded my opinion of the product.

The recent AEG L5R products have shown a dedication to consistent excellence that would make a Crane proud. They are clearly working on conceptualising the game from a players perspective and offering titles that really flesh out the world of Rokugan and add to the immersion in their game.

'The Great Clans' is truly staggering in scope and also in the amount of flavour information they offer. The book is predominantly narrative, and general information, with each Clan given a single chapter.

The information presented in each chapter really goes a long way to making each Clan a very distinct entity and showcasing the diversity possible within the scope of each Clan. It generally avoids stereotypes, but does so in a manner that makes NPCs and ancestors more human whilst adhering to the distinct flavour of the Clan. Every Clan is treated to a historical overview of its roots, major achievements and conflicts throughout the history of Rokugan to give players an appreciation for how the Clan grew into its 'present day' format. There is strong attention to detail here with a solid internal consistency, but presented in a manner which is easy to read. Most of the history is presented as stories, with sidebars and additional boxed text providing clarifications or interesting facts. On this note, whoever was responsible for the layout needs to be congratulated. The text is easily broken up by high-quality art, and the text boxes provide something else to draw the eye to snippets of information.

In addition to this, you can expect to find some Alternate Paths for each Clan (I quite liked the Kitsune Ranger), new Schools (like the Daidoji Scout which is currently vying to be my favourite), Ancestors and NPCs (with full stat blocks which could be used for nay range of purposes), new Techniques and even new rules (such as Rural Traps, in the Crane section, which will be really useful).

In summary, excellent content, high quality production values and a book that should be on every L5R table.