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Cyberia77
Meteorite
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2024
The eighth son of the Emperor was born under auspicious skies; a soft rain began to pour as he cried out. His mother named him Hachirō, and she doted on him without end. Her dreams had been filled with visions of further prosperity when she had carried him. As he grew into an adult, however, Hachirō remained unremarkable, a student in the way of the samurai destined to remain unimportant to the fate of his country. When he came of age, he remained in service to his older brothers and his father, planning to aid them as best he could. Just after Hachirō's twentieth birthday, the venerable Emperor passed, and his family was called to the holy site where he was to be interred. It was there that Hachirō's miraculous destiny would be revealed. As they laid the Emperor to rest, a great fork of lightning split the maple before the grave in two, revealing a sword in its center. All seven brothers of the young Hachirō tried and failed to wield the blade, but, when the eighth son of the Emperor reluctantly made his attempt, the weapon came free of the tree.
It was thus said that the world entered a golden age, one marked by the rule of one man over all creation. His virtue spread throughout the land, leading to the existence of many wise and gentle yokai. The greatest of these was Eisakuk, a Hakutaku who lived on the great mountain near the capital's palace. Like all Hakutaku, he was a protective yokai, one that granted his wisdom to those that sought him out on his mountain peak. Tales spread of his wisdom, and, though he was reclusive, pilgrims still ventured to meet him and learn of his wisdom.
Not all people loved the Emperor, however, and this included many yokai who sought to create trouble and mischief. The most important of these was Setsuko, a kitsune with a penchant for controlling humans as a puppet master. Rather than causing mild discord as most of her kind did, Setsuko was notoriously evil and rejoiced in this. Wanted by decree of the Emperor, she finally decided to truly rebel and prove herself master above all. To that end, Setsuko took on the guise of a pilgrim and found Eisaku on his mountain peak. The disguised Kitsune pleaded with the Hakutaku to follow her to where her companion had gotten stuck in the steaming gorge of the Hell Valley. The good-natured yokai followed dutifully, but, as the pair arrived, Setsuko revealed her true self and enslaved the Hakutaku. From there, she utilized the good reputation of the Hakutaku to trick more and more people, gaining power and puppets until the pair attacked Hachirō himself. The Kitsune, seeking a poetic end to the Emperor, used the Hakutaku, a symbol of his benevolent reign, to kill him.
Upon the death of Emperor Hachirō, great sadness and hatred began to permeate the very earth and the very water. Countless evil yokai were born from this, and even the benevolent among them became corrupted. Yoriko, one of the great dragon queens, submerged beneath waters of the Kitakami River in the Tōhoku, soon changed herself. Her once benevolent reign over both yokai and humans turned malevolent. She corrupted humans and made them sinful creatures, she turned yokai loose upon them, and she held feasts in which human flesh was all that was served.
So evil was her reign that Setsuko fleeing from the remnants of the Emperor's forces, actively sought and received asylum in Yoriko's undersea palace, bringing Eisaku with her to shelter there. With Setsuko as her court magician and a Hakutaku at her disposal, Yoriko only grew in power, and she soon openly battled the forces of the Emperor who had succeeded Hachirō, Jinzaburō.
Before Setsuko's plan to kill the Emperor, the Tengu known as Kanani was already a force of evil in the area surrounding a mountain in the countryside. She murdered and tortured innocents indiscriminately, even picking them up and flying them high into the sky before dropping them. Such was her malice that those around Hayachine warned of her by name, and they avoided the mountainside that she was said to roam. Even Hachirō was said to be in the midst of organizing a party of samurai to hunt down and kill the Tengu before his untimely death.
The influx of negative human emotion throughout the land following the Emperor's death further emboldened Kanami. She began to come down from her mountainside and lay waste to entire human villages. With the samurai occupied in the fight against Yoriko and her court, the Tengu reigned supreme in the region. As her battles dragged on, however, the corrupted Yorijo sent out Setsuki to find those who could aid them in their war. She ventured for some time without finding any worthy of Yoriko before she came to Mount Hayachine. Here, she discovered the land barren and ransacked, devoid of all humans. It was then that she found Kanami feasting on the bodies of a family. She promised a constant deluge of delights for the Tengu in exchange for her service, and Kanami readily agreed. These four yokai were dubbed the Four Great Sinners.
In a last ditch effort to suppress the evil and murderous yokai, Jinzaburō used the power of his grand priestess to seal away all yokai in the world, in the hopes that this would avert the chaos. Yoriko and the rest of the Sinners attempted to stop him, but they were too late, and, soon, all spirits and yokai were sealed away, never to be unleashed again.
In the present day, however, millennia into the future, the power that holds these yokai in place is fraying. The governments of the world, unprepared for this eventuality, decide upon a rather strange course of action: a series of secluded cities and villages home only to yokai. Here, people live in relative harmony, and the world at large doesn't harbor any knowledge of the yokai. These places, however, require staffing by humans in various positions. This is the tenuous connection between them both.
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If you've made it through all that text, congratulations! (If you haven't, I will vaporize you on sight). My idea is that YC serves as one of the humans recruited to venture into one of these yokai settlements and then gets involved with a number of characters! I'm keeping this purposely vague to give you a chance to come up with a cool and creative character as well as to allow us to create a bit of a concept together. We could involve the Four Great Sinners in some capacity or we could involve entirely different yokai, it's entirely up to us!
Looking forward to hearing from you!
It was thus said that the world entered a golden age, one marked by the rule of one man over all creation. His virtue spread throughout the land, leading to the existence of many wise and gentle yokai. The greatest of these was Eisakuk, a Hakutaku who lived on the great mountain near the capital's palace. Like all Hakutaku, he was a protective yokai, one that granted his wisdom to those that sought him out on his mountain peak. Tales spread of his wisdom, and, though he was reclusive, pilgrims still ventured to meet him and learn of his wisdom.
Not all people loved the Emperor, however, and this included many yokai who sought to create trouble and mischief. The most important of these was Setsuko, a kitsune with a penchant for controlling humans as a puppet master. Rather than causing mild discord as most of her kind did, Setsuko was notoriously evil and rejoiced in this. Wanted by decree of the Emperor, she finally decided to truly rebel and prove herself master above all. To that end, Setsuko took on the guise of a pilgrim and found Eisaku on his mountain peak. The disguised Kitsune pleaded with the Hakutaku to follow her to where her companion had gotten stuck in the steaming gorge of the Hell Valley. The good-natured yokai followed dutifully, but, as the pair arrived, Setsuko revealed her true self and enslaved the Hakutaku. From there, she utilized the good reputation of the Hakutaku to trick more and more people, gaining power and puppets until the pair attacked Hachirō himself. The Kitsune, seeking a poetic end to the Emperor, used the Hakutaku, a symbol of his benevolent reign, to kill him.
Upon the death of Emperor Hachirō, great sadness and hatred began to permeate the very earth and the very water. Countless evil yokai were born from this, and even the benevolent among them became corrupted. Yoriko, one of the great dragon queens, submerged beneath waters of the Kitakami River in the Tōhoku, soon changed herself. Her once benevolent reign over both yokai and humans turned malevolent. She corrupted humans and made them sinful creatures, she turned yokai loose upon them, and she held feasts in which human flesh was all that was served.
So evil was her reign that Setsuko fleeing from the remnants of the Emperor's forces, actively sought and received asylum in Yoriko's undersea palace, bringing Eisaku with her to shelter there. With Setsuko as her court magician and a Hakutaku at her disposal, Yoriko only grew in power, and she soon openly battled the forces of the Emperor who had succeeded Hachirō, Jinzaburō.
Before Setsuko's plan to kill the Emperor, the Tengu known as Kanani was already a force of evil in the area surrounding a mountain in the countryside. She murdered and tortured innocents indiscriminately, even picking them up and flying them high into the sky before dropping them. Such was her malice that those around Hayachine warned of her by name, and they avoided the mountainside that she was said to roam. Even Hachirō was said to be in the midst of organizing a party of samurai to hunt down and kill the Tengu before his untimely death.
The influx of negative human emotion throughout the land following the Emperor's death further emboldened Kanami. She began to come down from her mountainside and lay waste to entire human villages. With the samurai occupied in the fight against Yoriko and her court, the Tengu reigned supreme in the region. As her battles dragged on, however, the corrupted Yorijo sent out Setsuki to find those who could aid them in their war. She ventured for some time without finding any worthy of Yoriko before she came to Mount Hayachine. Here, she discovered the land barren and ransacked, devoid of all humans. It was then that she found Kanami feasting on the bodies of a family. She promised a constant deluge of delights for the Tengu in exchange for her service, and Kanami readily agreed. These four yokai were dubbed the Four Great Sinners.
In a last ditch effort to suppress the evil and murderous yokai, Jinzaburō used the power of his grand priestess to seal away all yokai in the world, in the hopes that this would avert the chaos. Yoriko and the rest of the Sinners attempted to stop him, but they were too late, and, soon, all spirits and yokai were sealed away, never to be unleashed again.
In the present day, however, millennia into the future, the power that holds these yokai in place is fraying. The governments of the world, unprepared for this eventuality, decide upon a rather strange course of action: a series of secluded cities and villages home only to yokai. Here, people live in relative harmony, and the world at large doesn't harbor any knowledge of the yokai. These places, however, require staffing by humans in various positions. This is the tenuous connection between them both.
-
If you've made it through all that text, congratulations! (If you haven't, I will vaporize you on sight). My idea is that YC serves as one of the humans recruited to venture into one of these yokai settlements and then gets involved with a number of characters! I'm keeping this purposely vague to give you a chance to come up with a cool and creative character as well as to allow us to create a bit of a concept together. We could involve the Four Great Sinners in some capacity or we could involve entirely different yokai, it's entirely up to us!
Looking forward to hearing from you!