• Hida Masakazu, Hida family daimyo, Clan Champion: Forty-six years old. Called the "Jovial Bear" in an ironic reference to his ancestor Hida Kisada. Masakazu is a huge, friendly, cheerful man known (and among the Crab, revered) for his tremendous capacity for sake. He seldom leaves the Crab lands and in fact spends most of his time in Kyuden Hida, only occasionally going forth to tour the Kaiu Wall.
• Hida Gojiro, "the Beast": Masakazu's son and heir, twenty-two years old. A grim, silent, frequently violent young man who spends most of his time on the Wall and leads frequent raids into the Shadowlands. Known for his impulsiveness and his violent hair-trigger temper, Gojiro has not been allowed to visit the courts of other Clans since an incident in Kyuden Doji when he was sixteen: after a Scorpion courtier made a gibe about uncouth Crabs, Gojiro tried to drown the man in a garden koi pond. It took five Daidoji bushi to pull him off.
• Hiruma Tsukan, Hiruma family daimyo: Twenty-seven years old, the eldest of three brothers. Tsukan is trained in the Hida school and is famous for the ferocious rages he displays on the battlefield (unlike Hida Gojiro, however, he can control himself in the courts). Like Gojiro, he spends much of his time organizing and leading raids along the border of Hiruma lands, and the two have frequently cooperated in such efforts. Tsukan's younger brother Satsu, trained in the Hiruma school, serves as commander of the Crab army's scouts.
• Kuni Yuriko, Kuni family daimyo: Seventy-three years old, and the oldest daimyo in the Empire by far. Yuriko's refusal to step down is a source of considerable controversy, even elsewhere in the Crab Clan (although her own family accepts it without question). Despite her age, Yuriko is a vigorous and unbowed woman, tall of stature and fierce of intellect, and attends Winter Court every year. She is known to have quarreled more than once with O-Doji Koneko (see "Crane Clan" below), and is rumored to have described the revered Crane matron as a "useless old bat."

Crab Clan Templates