The ghost bear of Strana Mechty is a truly awesome beast. Though similar in appearance to the polar bear of Terra's arctic region, the ghost bear is larger and stronger, some specimens having been recorded a standing more than five meters tall when reared up on their hind legs. Unlike the polar bear's fur, which shows a yellowish cast, the ghost bear's coat is pure white. Even the ghost bear's eyes and nose are a pale gray that appears nearly white, and its coloration makes the bear practically invisible against snow, even when running at full speed. Its size limits the ghost bear's ability to pursue its prey for any length of time, and so rather than running down its quarry, the bear lies in wait on the fringes of its prey's territory, using its keen sense of smell to locate likely hunting spots. The ghost bear then buries itself in the snow to enhance its camouflage, remaining completely motionless, often for days at a time. The bear apparently enters a state of semi-hibernation while awaiting a potential meal, conserving energy but remaining acutely aware of its surroundings all the while. The ghost bear takes its name from both its coloration and from its apparent ability to materialize from nothing.

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.

Like its namesake, Clan Ghost Bear has also survived, often in spite of itself, by virtue of its methodical persistence and the success of the Clan breeding program. The traditions of strength and stability on which Clan Ghost Bear prides itself can be traced back to its founders, the only married couple to help establish a Clan. The founders of Clan Ghost Bear receive equal reverence from it warriors, so much so that most believe that neither Sandra Tseng or Hans Jorgensson could have forged the Clan alone.

Khan Jorgensson made the official bid of three Galaxies for the Ghost Bears' right to invade Tukayyid, and won the right to descend in the fifth hour of combat. The Ghost Bear targets would be the twin cities of Spanac and Luk. Khans Jorgensson and Kabrinski laid out a simple and direct battle plan designed to crush the ComGuards quickly, confident that the strength of their forces would carry them to victory.

The Ghost Bears drove straight for their target cities opposed by the ComGuards' First Army and the reserve Fourth Army. As the senior commander, Precentor Katherine Luarca deployed her First Army to engage the Bears upon their landing, leaving only her veteran 103rd Division (Truth in Communication) to defend Spanac. Fearing that the green troops of the Fourth Army would break facing Clan OmniMechs in the field, she assigned the Fourth to garrison Luk.

The Ghost Bears split their forces, landing Alpha Galaxy in the hills above Spanac and Beta and Delta near Luk. Both forced landed unopposed, but suffered hit-and-run attacks as they advanced. The First Army's 308th Division (Clarity of Thought) did little to slow the veteran forces of Alpha Galaxy, and Beta Galaxy decimated the 121st Division (Gray Backs). The Ninety-First and Twelfth Divisions of the First Army fared better, trapping Delta Galaxy's Twentieth Polar Bear Attack Cluster in the outskirts of the Holth Forest and inflicting heavy losses on the Clan troops. This skirmish turned the tide in the Bear's push for Luk and forced Beta and Delta Galaxies to withdraw. The Ninety-First Division then fell back to assist in the defense of Spanac, but just managed to enter the city before Alpha Galaxy took up positions in the suburbs. The Bears settled in to hold Spanac under siege until reinforcements from the failed attack at Luk arrived. Unfortunately for the Clans, the ComGuards' Twelfth waylaid those reinforcements in a brilliant ambush, setting fire to the Holth forest and attacking Beta Galaxy's Seventh Bear Guards as they fled from the burning woods. When the exhausted Seventh finally broke free of the inferno, they ran down wide paths cut through the woods to the hills beyond. By entering these corridors, the bears fell to devastating short-range fire from the dug-in forces of the Twelfth. To a man, the overheated Ghost Bear 'Mechs died in the forest.

Meanwhile, the ComGuards had trouble on other fronts. The troops of the Ninety-First Division failed to achieve a proper defensive position in Spanac, and the arrival of Beta and Delta Galaxy troops at the siege enabled the Ghost Bears to overrun the Ninety-First and capture most of its supply caches intact. Predicting the imminent fall of the city, the Precentor Martial ordered Precentor Luarca to pull her 103rd Division out of Spanac.

The Ghost Bears took the city, but soon faced a counterattack from the two divisions of the Fourth Army. Garrisoned at Luk, the Fourth Army divisions had seen little combat in the battle on Tukayyid and so arrived at Spanac fresh and ready for action. With the Fourth Army raining artillery fire on the city and the remnants of the Ninety-First and Twelfth Divisions raiding in the suburbs, the Bear Khans chose to leave Beta and Delta Galaxies to hold Spanac while Alpha Galaxy mustered for an assault on Luk.

At Luk, Alpha Galaxy tore into the remaining divisions of the Fourth Army with all the ferocity of Clan Ghost Bear's namesake. Despite the ComGuards' superior numbers, the Fourth came close to breaking until Precentor Luarca redeemed herself by leading her 103rd Division and the remaining elements of the 308th in an attack against Alpha Galaxy's supply depot. The assault forced the Bears to pull back to defend their supplies; though the Fiftieth Striker Cluster managed to enter Luk's suburbs, the Clan troops lacked the force needed to take the city. Alpha Galaxy fought off a raid by reinforcements from the First ComGuard Army, but they suffered such high losses in doing so that the Bear Khans reluctantly ordered a withdrawal back to Spanac.

At this point, the ilKhan declared an end to the Ghost Bear campaign. Knowing that they lacked the strength to take Luk from the fresh ComGuards troops stationed there, the Bear Khans raised no objection. The battle of Tukayyid had already ended in defeat for several of the other Clans, and so if the Bears continued to fight, the ComGuards could easily shift enough forces from other combat theaters to drive the Clan from Spanac. Rather than lose all that they had gained, the Ghost Bears withdrew while they could still claim victory.

The Precentor Martial also welcomed the end of the Bear campaign. Though the ComGuards had lost to these particular Clan opponents, their forces' departure from Tukayyid left the First and Fourth Armies free to turn against the hard-fighting Jade Falcons. Because the Ghost Bears captured Spanac, breached defenses at Luk, and inflicted somewhat greater losses than they sustained, ilKhan Kerensky and Precentor Martial Focht agreed that the Ghost Bears had won a marginal victory over the ComGuards.

The waning power of the Wolves and the Jade Falcons has created a power vacuum among the invading Clans, leading to further instability as other Clans in the invasion force jockey for power. At present, the Ghost Bears seem the most likely to lead a renewed invasion. The Bears have bolstered their troops with reinforcements from the Clan homeworlds, a development that poses a grave threat to the Draconis Combine worlds that lie above the truce line.

Kurita raiders have staged near-constant raids against Clan Smoke Jaguar in recent years, which have prevented that Clan from effectively recovering from the heavy casualties it suffered on Tukayyid. Nova Cat raiders have begun harassing Smoke Jaguar forces recently as well, further hampering the Clan's attempts to rebuild. As a result, the Smoke Jaguars seem unlikely to challenge the Ghost Bears for leadership of the Clans. Clan Smoke Jaguar's weakness has filled its warriors with frustration and a fierce desire to prove they are still a force to be reckoned with - which makes the Jaguars a potentially dangerous enemy for their Clan brethren and Inner Sphere powers.

Neither the Steel Vipers nor the Nova Cats have the strength to challenge the Ghost Bears, but both Clans are far from harmless. The Viper Khan, Perigard Zalman, has shown remarkable restraint while patiently rebuilding his Clan, which marks him as a canny and dangerous leader. Meanwhile, the Nova Cats continue to rebuild following their losses on Luthien and Tukayyid. Their weakened condition, however, has not prevented them from raiding worlds located above the truce line.

In an attempt to weaken both the Ghost Bears and Smoke Jaguars to give themselves time to recover from the refusal war with Clan Jade Falcon, the then-Jade Wolves set into motion a complex plan, with layers of plots and misinformation blaming both Clan Smoke Jaguar and the forces of Phelan Kell's Clan Wolf in Exile for the theft of genetic material of the Clan Ghost Bear founders. The Ghost Bears, through a series of raids and information gathering missions, discovered the true nature of this deceit.

Although discovering that the blame lie with the Jade Wolves and not Clan Smoke Jaguar, the relative weakness of Clan Smoke Jaguar has left that Clan open to raiding and perhaps a trial of absorption by Clan Ghost Bear. Whether the Ghost Bears take advantage of this opportunity or not is left to be seen.

Finally, with their long standing ties with the Wolves and Diamond Sharks, the Ghost Bear Khans voted against the election of Elias Crichell of Clan Jade Falcon to the post of ilKhan.