Nicholas Kerensky chose this seemingly brutish animal as the namesake for one of his Clans for more than its physical prowess. He also admired the loyalty it showed its family; ghost bears mate for life and maintain a tenuous connection to their offspring, a trait almost unknown in the animal kingdom. Nicholas also believed that the ghost bear represented a strong respect for tradition. He characterized ghost bears as clinging stubbornly to their instincts, only reluctantly changing their habits and behaviors to adapt to environmental and situational changes. The ghost bear survives its apparent lack of adaptability with an extremely hardy constitution and high birth rate.

A powerful Clan always attracts rivals, and the Ghost Bears are no exception. Topping the list are the Hell’s Horses, who have a long-running border disputes with the Ghost Bears. One such conflict in the Golden Century resulted in the death of Kilbourne Jorgensson, arguably the most popular Ghost Bear Khan in history. The Ghost Bears have held a simmering hatred of the Horses ever since.

As the years passed, those first warriors passed this sense of pride and belonging to those under their command. The intensity of the relationship faded as the Clan grew, but the general sense remained. Ghost Bear warriors maintain tight bonds with their trothkin and starmates. True friendship among them is widespread, and some even say love is common among the ranks (although the Bears deny this).

In the civilian castes, where families are common in other Clans, the concept is far closer to the Inner Sphere norm than in other Clans. Children generally stay with their parents rather than being raised in community crèches. In most cases, this means the crèches are more like day care than permanent homes for the children, and the parents take care of their own children as much as they can while still performing their duties for the Clan.

Clan Ghost Bear has few official ceremonies or customs, instead relying on a broader spectrum of traditions that give the Clan its unique identity. Reinforced through education and the military chain of command, these characteristics make a Ghost Bear what he or she is.

The Virtue of Strength

In battle and in other endeavors, the Ghost Bears favor strength above all things: not only physical strength, but strength of purpose and character. Our strength has allowed us to prosper in spite of our often hidebound ways and chronic political naïveté. A major contributing factor in our development along these lines has been the Clan's easy access to metals and other resources since the Golden Century. With an abundance of raw materials, the Ghost Bears have had the luxury of heavier than-average 'Mech units, and so can apply force more directly than Clans such as the Wolves and Ice Hellions.

On an individual scale, each warrior's strength is also considered of primary importance. Hand to hand combat training is as intense for MechWarriors as for Elementals, and even our aerospace pilots are deadly outside the cockpit. Each year, teams from every Galaxy compete in a Clan decathlon in the tradition of the ancient Terran athletic contest. The winners of this event receive the respect of their peers and a seat at the head of the table for the feast that follows the competition.

The Clawing Ritual

Personifying the Ghost Bears' reverence for strength is the Clawing. This dangerous rite of passage is undertaken only by the bravest of Ghost Bear warriors, but those who survive it are destined to rise to the Clan's highest echelons. Only the highest-ranking un-Clawed warrior in each Cluster may participate in the annual trip to Strana Mechty. There, the Clan Loremaster leads the candidates in a month-long period of reflection and purification, reliving Tseng and Jorgensson's journey in their hearts before they attempt it with their bodies. The candidates from each Galaxy are then grouped into hunting parties and equipped with only basic equipment, including a pair of hunting dogs to aid in tracking down their elusive quarry. Armed only with a simple metal spear, the hunters embark on their journey. They go out to find a ghost bear, defeat it in combat and return its carcass to base camp as proof of their deed.

Fewer than half the hunting parties return, and fewer still return successful. There is no dishonor in failure, for the punishing Antarctic of Strana Mechty is a test of stamina few warriors outside our Clan could survive. Usually, at least one hunting party returns with a ghost bear. It is carefully skinned amid great ceremony; the pelt fashioned into cloaks for the victors. The Clans abhor waste, and so the flesh of the honored creature is roasted over a bonfire and shared among all the candidates in the hope that ingesting the ghost bear will impart some portion of its essence to them.

Haste makes Waste

The founders of Clan Ghost Bear taught their warriors that "to tread without care is to court disaster." As evidenced by their slow but steady advances in the liberation of the Pentagon, Tseng and Jorgensson believed a methodical and thorough approach was preferable to a blitzkrieg. In a similar vein, the Ghost Bears see partial commitment to a cause as worse than no commitment at all. We undertake nothing lightly, just as our founders did not join the Exodus without due consideration.

This general tendency has evolved over time into an overriding Ghost Bear philosophy. Strategically and tactically, the Bears move in measured steps. In the field of military technology, we do not rush to adopt unproven weapons, whose introduction always disrupts the rank and file. Instead, we test any new acquisition, often by observing other Clans as they employ the technology in battle. Only after a technology or tactic has proven its worth is it employed by the Ghost Bear Clan, whose warriors then embrace it wholeheartedly.

The Great Work

Among his many virtues, Khan Kilbourne Jorgensson was an exceptional sculptor and musician. Though some warriors scoff at artistic expression, throughout history many great warriors were also artists. In the courtyard outside his headquarters, Kilbourne worked on a massive life-sized statue of the ghost bear he killed during his own Clawing. He began the sculpture immediately upon his return from that rite, to create a monument to the great beast he had felled. Whenever possible, he would venture into the courtyard and work on the sculpture, refining this or that detail. One day his aide asked if he was nearly finished with the statue. The Khan responded cryptically, saying. "When I am finished, so will the statue be finished." The Khan was killed in battle later that month. The statue now stands guard over the Jorgensson Bloodname Chapel in the Svoboda Zemylya (Peace Park) on Strana Mechty.

Kilbourne Jorgensson's sculpture gave rise to the idea of creating a "Great Work" to demonstrate dedication to a long-term goal or cause. This usually takes the form of a single artistic piece: a sculpture, musical composition, painting and so forth. The Work is begun after an individual comes of age (after the Trial of Position for warriors), and is worked on throughout life -daily if possible, little by little. Such creations are never truly "finished." Like life, the Great Work is a never-ending journey. Often a Great Work is a joint effort of trothkin, especially when the effort is an especially large Work such as a monumental sculpture. This type of Great Work has even more value in some ways, as it also emphasizes teamwork.

By tradition, every warrior is expected to create a Great Work, which is performed or displayed as appropriate at the warrior's funeral ceremony. The Work is included in the warrior's codex after death, as a monument to the warrior's spirit. In the case of Bloodnamed warriors, the Work is perpetually displayed in the Svoboda Zemylya near the warrior's Bloodname Chapel.

Family Values

Hard work and dedication are cornerstones of Ghost Bear daily life. These attitudes are typical of the Clans, but the Bears further reinforce them with the concept of family. A word repugnant to all other Clans, family has a unique meaning to this Clan, founded as it was by a married couple. In their 38 years as the Clan's first Khans, Tseng and Jorgensson imparted to their warriors a unique sense of camaraderie and fellowship. As the years passed, those first warriors passed this sense of belonging to those under their command. The intensity of the relationship faded as the Clan grew, but the general sense of it remained. To this day, Ghost Bear warriors maintain tight bonds with their trothkin and Starmates, and lifelong friendships are widespread.

This gives the Ghost Bears unrivaled esprit de corps, but can sometimes prove a weakness as well. Bonds of true friendship are hard to break, and when warriors are in the field, this kind of attachment can sometimes lead them to take unwise risks on behalf of their trothkin. Though this often results in heroic feats of valor, just as often it can lead to the loss of the objective. Transfers can also be a problem, as joining a new unit means new bonds must be forged and old ones pushed aside. New units or units created from the fragments of others are often weak at first. For this reason, Ghost Bear soldiers are normally transferred between units in Star or Binary-sized groups rather than individually.

Training