Byako family

Byako family was a vassal family in service to the Kitsune family of the Mantis Clan.

Founding
Two hundred years after the Fox Clan was founded, the nephew of the Fox Clan Champion fell into a fissure in the Kitsune Mori and died. A kitsune took human form to replace him, having a link with the spirit of the dead. The Fox Champion could communicate with his nephew through this kitsune, and his grief was somehow alleviated. This kitsune was given its own family, named after the Rokugani word for "white fox".

Tradition
In each generation a direct descendant of the first Byako married and bore two children. When they came to an age, one performed his gempukku to follow the way of the samurai, while the second disappeared in the forest to return with the kitsune spirits. It was a smnall family of powerful shugenja, who never left the Kitsune lands.