A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
Some cards, like Okura Is Released, refer to "Fear effects" and others, like Susumu Yanada, refer to "Fear actions". I'm guessing that any action with a Fear effect is a Fear action, but not every Fear action has a Fear effect. The only examples of the latter are cards like Chiisai from pre-Ivory blocks. Is my assumption correct?
Where this becomes especially important is for Daigotsu Geiko. Does he get bonus force when I use The Sinister Citadel of the Spider's ability?
Similarly to Ranged Attack actions, a Fear action is one that produces a Fear effect as one of its effects.
Geiko would gain force for playing the Sinister Citadel's action.