Just thought I’d put this here for anyone curious about the different spirit armors.
NOTE: These are all for male ronin & there might be some differences for a few when it comes to female ronin.
Summary
Barn swallow: a kimono with as brilliant colors as theirs. My undershirt was crimson red and ran high upon my neck, beneath a yellow kimono that the Gold General himself would envy. And of course, the brilliant blue haori jacket above all else, which carried behind it a constant wind.
Alligator: shin guards and sleeves, plated thigh pieces and shoulders. On my chest was the well-known lamellar armor, but in rigid alligator scales instead of iron.
Snow monkey: I was naked. Or at least, it felt that way. My shoulders were bare; my long, fur-trimmed sleeves connected from my arms down to a red sash. My chest and bandages were on full display, yet I felt incredibly warm inside this brown-and-white yukata.
Akita inu: chainmail above a traditional men’s kimono. The problem was the bright-orange haori jacket, which to my horror had the same white mountain trim as the Shinsengumi.
Firefly: a kimono that looked plain black and delightfully low-key. I had feared it would be something more flashy, and rightfully so. My haori jacket was silk, and more than that, it was semi-translucent, and its gold patterns gave off a remarkable shine. The simple kimono was, in truth, carefully embroidered with a dozen designs revealed at my every step.
Giant salamander: It was in the style of some obscenely well-outfitted ashigaru—a foot soldier—with shin guards and sleeves, plated thigh pieces, and shoulders, too. Like the salamander, my chest piece wasn’t made out of iron, but a spongy material of black-and-brown speckled skin.
Spider crab: Shin guards and sleeves, plated thigh pieces and shoulders—and the chest piece, of course, all colored in the white and orange of the spider crab. It was surprisingly lightweight, save for the back piece, which I couldn’t see.
Chipmunk: shin guards and sleeves, plated thigh pieces and shoulders. They and my chest piece were colored in browns and blacks, and each was outlined in white. It was a samurai’s gusoku, save for one major detail: instead of a helmet, I wore the unmistakable cowl of a sohei.
Wild boar: I wore nothing atop my bandaged chest save for a sleeveless jacket. A general’s surcoat—a jinbaori painted in bloody red and white. It was the sight every samurai feared most on the battlefield. I had no armor save for plated sleeves, which included gloves with tusks on them.
Striped snake: It was a ninja’s mask, part of a fully featured shozoku colored black. The shinobi outfit was surprisingly low-cut and sleeveless—though hardly revealing, for atop my skin was some sort of mesh or webbing that had an uncanny resemblance to snakeskin.
