WORLD LORE: MYŌWA-NO-KUNI (妙和之国)

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OVERVIEW

Myōwa is a realm of ancient beauty and quiet danger, a land of mist-wreathed mountains, seas that glow faintly at dusk, and forests so old they have learned to breathe. It is a world that belongs equally to the living and the spiritual, to the mortal and the divine, and the border between these realms is never so fixed as men would like to believe.

The majority of Myōwa's human population lives under the dominion of the Yamato Empire (大和帝国), a vast and ancient civilisation spread across five provinces on the great island of Takamajima. To the southwest, the martial Hachimanfu (八幡府) commands the island of Tenryoujima, governing not through bureaucracy and ceremony but through the edge of a blade and the word of the strong. Beyond the jurisdiction of either power lie the wilderness villages, the spirit-haunted wilds, and places that belong to no human faction at all.

The story takes place in the year 748 HY, during the Nagahiko Era (延彦年号), under the reign of the Yabushi-no-Nagahiko-Akitsumikami-Tennou (藪知之延彦現在天皇) — the current living Emperor, third of his name, who has ruled from the Chrysanthemum Seat for twenty-two years.

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HISTORY

I. Kamiyo — The Age of Gods (神代)

Long ago when the Heaven and Earth where without name, seven generations of divine pairs came into being, with the seventh pair being the two Creator Gods "Izanami" and "Izanagi". It was these two who stood upon the remnant of the cosmos's first ripple—the Ame-no-Ukihasi (天之浮橋, "Floating Brige of Heaven")—and stirred the primordial sea with a jeweled spear, drawing Onogoro Island, the first island in Myōwa.

At some point in the latter Kamiyo — the precise moment debated endlessly by scholars — five divine beings came into existence and took particular interest in the mortal world outside of Onogoro: Minakanushi (御中主), Kaguma (輝目), Yorokobime (喜姫), Emushi (笑知), and Koyatsuma (木や妻). Each would come to be associated with one of the Five Provinces and one of the Five Moving Elements, and together they are held as the spiritual patrons of the Yamato line — a claim not without its critics.

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II. Hitoyo — The Age of Humans (人代)

| 1 HY | Yamato Empire established.

The first Emperor, Mitakeshi-Akitsumikami-Tennou, unifies the warring clans of Takamajima under a single banner following a divination of the Celestial Mandate, founding the capital at Mikado.

| ~50–200 HY | Imperial Expansion.

The Empire grows across Takamajima, absorbing or displacing smaller clan territories. The Aeyai people of the northeast resist assimilation, eventually reaching an uneasy accord.

| ~210 HY | The Crossing.

Imperial expansion turns southwest, crossing the Twin Heavens Bay with the aid of professional warrior retainers — the early samurai clans — and beginning the colonization of Tenryoujima.

| ~250–300 HY | The Eight Great Clans.

Eight samurai clans take root on Tenryoujima, governing its regions as extensions of the Empire. Their loyalty and usefulness buys them increasing autonomy and land.

| 341 HY | The Reform Edict.

Fearing the growing military power of the samurai, Emperor Tenjaku-Tennou attempts to dissolve the clan titles through a sweeping edict, forcibly conscripting the samurai into a standardized Imperial Military. The Eight Clans refuse.

| 342 HY | The Battle of the Twin Heavens.

The Eight Clans unite, seizing Imperial ships and blockading the Bay. After a series of brutal naval engagements and a disastrous Imperial landing on Tenryoujima, the Empire is forced to cede the island and all holdings southwest of the Bay. The Hachimanfu is formally declared.

| 343–389 HY | The Warring Eras (Sengoku-ki).

With the Empire's binding hand removed, the Eight Clans turn on one another in a prolonged civil conflict over dominance of the Hachimanfu. Two of the clans — the Kurokane and the Fujitaka — employ secretive shinobi agents to conduct espionage and assassination; these shinobi factions would later unite as the Hagokoro Clan.

| ~390 HY | Consolidation.

The Warring Eras end when the Mikata Clan emerges dominant, and the formal process for selecting the Hachiman through clan consensus is codified, with Mikata Soujun as the first Hachiman. The first peacetime Hachimanfu begins to take its modern shape.

| 401–453 HY | The Hyakki Yagyo (百鬼夜行).

With both major powers weakened by decades of conflict, a vast coalition of malevolent yōkai and demons launches a sustained campaign of destruction across all of Myōwa — the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons made terrible reality. Villages are massacred, shrines desecrated, and roads rendered impassable. The Empire and Hachimanfu forge an unprecedented alliance, and through the combined might of Imperial onmyōji and Hachimanfu blades — spearheaded by the newly-formed Yōkaizan Corps under the legendary Narakugo — the Yagyo is at last suppressed.

| ~454–700 HY | The Long Peace.

An era of relative stability, punctuated by border skirmishes, political intrigue, and the occasional supernatural incident. The Hagokoro Clan grows from a wartime tool into a persistent thorn in the Hachimanfu's side. The Trading Kingdoms and Myōwa deepen commercial ties.

| 748 HY | The Present Day.

The previous Emperor dies under circumstances that satisfy no one. Young Nagahiko is elevated from Miyasama of Yabushi to Akitsumikami Tennou. Rumours from the west concerning a new and terrible weapon travel faster than ships. The Hyakki faction grows bolder. The Hagokoro Clan disappears from its usual haunts.

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POLITICAL STRUCTURE

The Yamato Empire (大和帝国, Yamato-Keikoku)

The dominant power of Myōwa, occupying the whole of Takamajima through five provinces. Its authority rests on three pillars: the divine legitimacy of the Celestial Mandate, the bureaucratic machinery of its ministries, and the spiritual authority of the Bureau of Onmyou.

Rather than passing through bloodline alone, the title of "Akitsumikami Tennou" (現御神天皇, "Divine Emperor of The Present/This Era") is determined by divination. When an Emperor passes — or in rare circumstances is removed—the five highest ranking masters of the Bureau of Onmyou perform the Ritual of the Heavenly Mandate (天命之儀 Tenmei no Gi), reading celestial omens over seven days and nights to determine which of the four active Miyasama is best suited to lead the nation into its next age. The chosen is given a new formal name incorporating their province of origin and the era-name they will inaugurate.

The current Emperor, "Yabushi-no-Nagahiko-Akitsumikami-Tennou", is a young man of twenty-two — scholarly, perceptive, and accustomed to the quiet diplomacy of a forested province rather than the sharp politics of the Imperial capital. He ascended unexpectedly after his predecessor's death, which the Bureau attributed to natural causes with somewhat suspicious speed. Nagahiko is not a fighter, not a showman, and not yet a political animal — but he is patient, he reads people well, and he is cleverer than most assume. Whether this will be enough is the question everyone at court is quietly asking.

The Miyasama (宮様, "Provincial Lords")

Beneath the Emperor serve the four Miyasama—lords of the Empire's provinces, each granted considerable autonomy within their domain while remaining bound to Imperial law and the Emperor's decrees. The province of Kōkyo has no Miyasama; by tradition, the Emperor himself is its lord, and its administration is handled directly by the Imperial court.

• Kagutsuchi-no-Tsuyochi-Miyasama: A young, sharp-tempered woman, revered for being a remarkable skills with a sword. Has a stern, determined glare that belies her young age, as well as a large, scar on the left side of her face.

• Iwato-no-Shiraumi-Miyasama: A young man of twenty-six with a reputation for his stunning looks and pendant for festivities, so much that he has earned the moniker of "Himenasobi Miyasama" (姫遊び宮様, "Playboy Prince").

• Mizuho-no-Shizuemon-Miyasama : At sixty-three, Shizuemon is the eldest of the Miyasama and the one everyone else, consciously or not, treats as the room's center of gravity. He is a former abbot of the Great Temple of Emushi, ordained at fourteen, and has served as Miyasama for eighteen years. He never raises his voice.

• Yabushi-no-Himeyuri-Miyasama: At nineteen, Himeyuri has been elevated to the Miyasama of Yabushi in her brother's place — a promotion she accepted with the polite composure of someone who is absolutely terrified but refuses to show it. She grew up in Yabushi's quiet forests and shrines and has a genuine affinity for spiritual matters that the province's onmyouji find reassuring.

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The Hachimanfu (八幡府)

An independent military shogunate governing Tenryoujima and maintaining fortified outposts throughout the wilderness of Takamajima. Where the Empire rules through divine mandate and bureaucratic architecture, the Hachimanfu rules through martial law, clan loyalty, and the blunt, reliable logic of the sword.

The Hachimanfu is led by the Hachiman (八幡), chosen by consensus of the Eight Great Clan heads when the seat falls vacant, a process that is theoretically orderly and in practice deeply contentious. The Hachiman serves for life or until removed by a unanimous vote of the clans, whichever comes first.

The Current Hachiman — Goudou Kenzan (剛道堅山) A man of fifty-six, built like a collapsed mountain and scarred accordingly. Kenzan came up through the Goudou Clan, and spent thirty years earning his authority one battle at a time before the clans agreed, with minimal stabbing, to elect him Hachiman. He is direct to the point of bluntness, allergic to ceremony, and possesses a tactical mind that the Empire's generals quietly respect and publicly disdain. He is also, to the bewilderment of everyone who has ever fought him, an accomplished poet. He has never published any of it.

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GEOGRAPHY

Geographically an archipelago, Myōwa is composed of multiple islands, of which three are principal: Takamajima, the heartland of the Yamato Empire; Tenryoujima, the domain of the Hachimanfu; and Onogoro Island, a place spoken of in the oldest myths and avoided by the living.

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TAKAMAJIMA (高島)

The largest island in Myōwa, and the most densely inhabited. Takamajima is a land of dramatic geographic contrasts — volcanic southern peaks trailing ash across jade-green valleys; northern flatlands stretching so wide the horizon seems to bow; densely forested eastern slopes where the mist never fully lifts. The Empire's five provinces occupy most of the land, with the far northeast belonging to the Aeyai people.

Koukyo Province (皇居国)

• Population: 20,000+
• Capital: Mikado (御門)
• Symbol: The Yellow Dragon

The political and spiritual heart of the Empire. Koukyo is built around Lake Amanokagami (天鏡湖, Mirror of Heaven), a body of water so still and reflective it is said the gods use it to observe the mortal world. The city of Mikado encircles the lake's southern shore — a labyrinthine city of whitewashed walls, tiered bridges, and thousands of lanterns strung between buildings like suspended constellations.

At the city's centre stands the Chrysanthemum Palace (Kikugo, 菊御), seat of the Emperor, built on a raised artificial island connected to the shore by three ceremonial bridges. Surrounding it are the great ministries, the imperial archives, the Bureau of Onmyo's headquarters, and the vast residences of the capital nobility, arranged in concentric rings of decreasing prestige moving outward from the palace.

Kōkyo has no provincial Miyasama — it is governed directly by the Emperor, making it unique among the five provinces.

Notable Locations:

• The Bureau of Onmyo's Hall of Celestial Reading (天文館, Tenmonkan): A circular observatory built from black stone at the city's highest point, crowned with a bronze instrument array used for astrological divination.
• The Reikai Archive (霊界文庫 Reikai Bunko): A sealed library beneath the Chrysanthemum Palace containing every treaty, record, and correspondence with the spirit world since the Empire's founding. Access is restricted to senior Bureau officials and the Emperor.
• The Nakashiro Market (中城市 Nakashiro-ichi): The largest commercial district in all of Myōwa, where merchants from every province — and occasionally traders from beyond Myōwa's known borders — convene.

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Kagutsuchi Province (迦具土国)

• Population: 30,000+
• Capital: Honobashira (鍛冶場)
• Symbol: The Vermillion Bird

Kagutsuchi occupies the volcanic southern reaches of Takamajima, where the earth is never fully at rest. Columns of steam rise from hot fissures in the ground, rivers run warm with mineral content, and the sky to the south is permanently stained a hazy amber by the ash-plumes of Mount Komusaburi (木貪山), the province's dominant volcanic peak and its most sacred site. The architecture is designed for endurance: low buildings of grey volcanic brick with maroon-tiled roofs, built wide rather than tall to withstand the periodic tremors.

The province is the Empire's industrial foundation. Its smiths — organised into hereditary guilds under the collective authority of the Forge Council (Kajigikai, 鍛冶議会) — produce the majority of the Empire's weaponry, armour, tools, and ceremonial metalwork. The greatest among them are considered living national treasures. The most celebrated current master is Araboshi (粗星), a one-armed smith whose work is said to carry spiritual properties beyond mere craftsmanship.

Notable Locations:

• Mount Komusaburi (木貪山 Komubsaburizan): An active volcano revered as the earthly body of the god Kaguma. The mountain's caldera houses a fire that has burned continuously, tended by the Kaen Priests (火炎僧 Kaen-sō), for over four hundred years. The fire is used to kindle the forge-flames of every master smith in the province.
• The Ashroads (灰道 Haidō): A network of ancient highways through the volcanic badlands, paved with black volcanic stone. The roads are older than the Empire itself, and no one is certain who built them.

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Iwato Province (祝戸国)

• Population: 7,500+
• Capital: Otoribashi (鳥橋)
• Symbol: The White Tiger

The smallest and most westward of the provinces, Iwato occupies a crescent of coastline where the mountains roll gently into sea-cliffs and the water turns shades of turquoise and green unknown elsewhere in Myōwa. The towns here are built to complement the landscape rather than dominate it — wooden architecture painted in sea-washed blues and greens, raised on stilts over inlets, connected by rope bridges and stone walkways worn smooth by centuries of feet.

Iwato is the Empire's cultural heartland. Its miko (巫女) are regarded as the most spiritually gifted in Myōwa, and its kabuki troupes travel the Empire seasonally, performing in every provincial capital. The province's onsen (hot springs) attract pilgrims, artists, and nobles seeking rest. Its red-light districts, particularly the infamous Hagoromo Quarter (羽衣町 Hagoromo-chō) in Otoribashi, are a source of both enormous revenue and frequent moral controversy at the Imperial court.

Notable Locations:

• The Hagoromo Quarter: A floating district built across a wide, shallow bay — a city of lantern-lit boats, elevated walkways, and establishments that cater to every form of pleasure, artistry, and vice.

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Mizuho Province (瑞穂国)

• Population: 50,000+
• Capital: Tanehara (種原)
• Symbol: The Black Turtle

The largest province by both territory and population. Mizuho occupies the broad northern plains of Takamajima, a landscape of extraordinary agricultural abundance — golden rice paddies that stretch to the horizon, orchards of stone fruit and persimmon, and river systems carefully managed by generations of hydraulic engineers. In summer, the province is a sea of warm gold; in winter, it becomes a flat white silence broken only by the calls of migratory birds.

Despite its prosperity, Mizuho is deeply superstitious. The harvest depends not only on weather and labour but on the goodwill of countless local tanokami (田の神, paddy-field spirits), who must be properly placated through seasonal offerings, carefully observed taboos, and an enormous annual festival called the Mizuho Harvest Accord (瑞穂感謝祭 Mizuho Kansha-sai), in which the Miyasama formally thanks the spirits of every field individually — a ceremony that takes eleven days.

Notable Locations:

• The Kami-michi (神道 Spirit Roads): Raised earthen pathways that cross the paddies, believed to be the walking routes used by the tanokami during their seasonal migrations. It is deeply taboo to block, cross, or build across a Kami-michi.
• Tanehara (種原): The provincial capital, a large, sprawling city built along a river delta, notable for its enormous grain warehouses, its bureaucratic complexity, and the largest human population of any single city outside Mikado.

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Yabushi Province (藪知国)

• Population: 30,000+
• Capital: Moriba (杜場)
• Symbol: The Azure Dragon

Yabushi covers the far eastern reaches of Takamajima, a province of immense, ancient forests — bamboo groves so dense sunlight filters through them only as green-tinted shafts, cedar forests whose canopies block the sky, and cryptomeria trees wide enough to hollow into homes. The timber produced here is the finest in Myōwa, exported across all five provinces for construction, weaponry, and paper-making. The province's coastline is rich in fish, and its riverways teem with salmon in autumn.

There is something different about Yabushi's forests. Animals behave unusually here. The trees grow in shapes that, on occasion, suggest intention. The Miyasama, Himeyuri, has recently been promoted due to the coronation of her brother, Nagahiko.

Notable Locations:

• The Eternal Woods (永久杜 Tokiwamori): The innermost old-growth heart of Yabushi's forests, where the trees are ancient beyond measurement and the canopy is so thick the forest floor receives no direct sunlight. It is the domain of the Kodama Council, a loose assembly of the oldest forest spirits, who speak with the Miyasama twice a year during the solstices.
• The Paper Road (紙道 Kamimichi): The trade road along which finished paper and timber products travel westward to Kōkyo and south to Kagutsuchi.

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The Aeyai Tundras (アエヤイ凍原)

• Population: 4,500+
• Governed by: The Aeyai People

Beyond the northeastern borders of Mizuho and Yabushi lies a landscape that Takamajima seems to exhale rather than claim — a gradual transition from farmland to boreal forest to vast, wind-scoured tundra. This is the homeland of the Aeyai (アエヤイ), a people distinct from the Yamato in language, custom, spiritual practice, and appearance.

The Aeyai are a semi-nomadic people who move between seasonal camps, following the migration patterns of the animals they hunt and the rhythms of the tundra spirits they maintain relationships with. They have no written language, but their oral tradition is extraordinarily sophisticated, encoding genealogy, history, geography, and spiritual law within multi-day song-cycles called Yukar.

The Empire has maintained an ambiguous relationship with the Aeyai for centuries — never formally subjugating them, as two military incursions in the early centuries of the Hitoyo era were repelled with losses the Empire preferred not to document, but also never formally recognising their sovereignty. The current arrangement is one of careful mutual tolerance: the Aeyai provide the Empire with rare northern goods and occasional spiritual intelligence; the Empire provides trade goods and, nominally, protection from the Oni raids that occasionally strike the tundra's fringes.

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TENRYOUJIMA (天領島) — The Heaven-Ruled Island

A rugged, dramatic island of steep cliffs, dense pine forest, and cold, fast rivers. Tenryoujima is the primary domain of the Hachimanfu, and every aspect of the landscape seems to reflect the character of its inhabitants — uncompromising, self-sufficient, and shaped by struggle.

Hatagashira Joukaku (覇城郭, "Crest-Bearer Fortress")

The fortified capital of Tenryoujima, built into a natural harbor on the island's northeastern coast. Its defining feature is the Hachiman Tower — a massive, seven-tiered donjon of black stone and lacquered wood that can be seen from the water long before the rest of the city becomes visible. This is where the Eight Clan Heads convene for major decisions, where the Hachiman holds court, and where the Yōkaizan Corps maintains its primary barracks and training grounds.

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ONI ISLAND (鬼ヶ島 Onigashima)

A jagged, volcanic island off the western coast of Takamajima, permanently shrouded in unnatural storm clouds that rotate slowly, as if the island itself is spinning. The water around it is black and unusually warm, and fish do not swim near its shores. Sailors give it wide berth not out of superstition but out of experience.

Onigashima is the stronghold of the Oni Clans, a collection of powerful demon-blooded warriors organised under the authority of Ootakemaru (大嶽丸), a warlord of extraordinary physical and supernatural power. Oni are creatures of immense strength and violent appetite, with horns, coloured skin — red, blue, black — and a talent for disrupting spiritual harmonics simply by their presence. Under Ootakemaru, the Oni clans have become less a rabble and more an organised force, launching coordinated raids on coastal settlements with unsettling strategic precision.

Ootakemaru himself is seldom seen off the island. Those who have survived encounters with him describe a figure of towering height, a body of dark red skin layered in irregular armour made from the bones of things larger than men, and two great iron clubs that he wields without apparent effort. He does not speak during battle. Survivors report this detail as the most frightening thing.

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ONOGORO ISLAND (磤馭慮島)

The island born from the first drop of the Creator Gods' spear is said to have never been fully finished — it exists in a state of permanent becoming, its geography shifting subtly between visits in ways that make reliable maps impossible. Compasses behave erratically near its shores. Ships that approach too closely often find themselves somehow redirected, arriving at their intended destination without memory of the detour.

The few accounts of humans who have set foot on Onogoro describe a landscape of impossible beauty — crystal formations of tremendous scale, air that tastes faintly sweet, flora found nowhere else in Myōwa, and an overwhelming sense of being observed. No bodies have ever been found. No one who visited has reported anything threatening. But no one visits twice.

Some scholars of the Bureau of Onmyou believe Onogoro is not fully in the mortal world — that it occupies a position between Myōwa and the realm of the dead, maintained by the unresolved grief of Izanagi. This theory is considered unverifiable and somewhat embarrassing to put in official documents.

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INHABITANTS

Humans

The majority population of Myōwa. Humans have no innate magical abilities but compensate with exceptional adaptability, institutional structure, and the unique capacity to develop onmyoudou — the acquired magical tradition that no spirit can fully replicate, as it is built on the mortal experience of limitation, change, and loss.

Human culture in Myōwa is shaped by its proximity to the spiritual. Most humans conduct daily acts of spiritual maintenance without thinking of them as magic — leaving offerings, observing taboos, watching for signs. The line between spiritual practice and everyday life is not sharp.

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Yōkai and Kami

The spiritual dimension of Myōwa is not separate from the physical world but within it — a deeper layer of the same reality, accessible to those with the sensitivity to perceive it.

Kami (神)

Kami are the "official" spirits of Myōwa — entities of significant power who have entered into formal relationships with human society through the medium of shrines, rituals, and the written covenants of the Reikai Pact. To be a Kami is not necessarily to be good, but it is to be known, named, and held to a standard of conduct. Kami who violate their covenants become subject to containment by the Bureau of Onmyou.

The most powerful Kami include the great ryuujin (dragon gods) of the deep waters, the tennyo (celestial maidens) of mountain peaks, and local guardian kami of specific places — ancient trees, crossroads, bodies of water — who have accumulated enough worship to develop individual consciousness.

Yōkai (妖怪)

Where Kami are official, yōkai are unofficial. They are the wild spirits, the unnamed, the uncatalogued — ranging from the harmless and mischievous to the deeply dangerous. Yōkai operate outside the Reikai Pact's formal protections, which means they receive neither rights nor restrictions under Imperial law. In practice, this has created a complicated patchwork of local custom: some villages have centuries-old informal relationships with local yōkai that function almost like citizenship; others drive them off at first sight.

The taxonomy of yōkai is the subject of obsessive scholarly debate within the Bureau of Onmyou. A working classification used by field onmyōji distinguishes between tsukumogami (objects that have gained spirit after a hundred years), henge (shapeshifters, including kitsune, tanuki, and bakeneko), suijin (water spirits, including kappa and the various river serpents), and oni-adjacent (powerful, violent entities that blur the line between yōkai and demons).

Notable Yōkai Types in Myōwa:

• Kitsune (狐):* Fox spirits of great cunning and charm; their power and perceived moral alignment grow with each of their nine tails
• Tanuki (狸): Raccoon-dog spirits renowned for shapeshifting, mischief, and unexpected moments of genuine kindness
• Kappa (河童): Aquatic spirits of the rivers and irrigation channels; dangerous when offended, useful when respected |
• Tengu (天狗): Proud, bird-like warrior spirits; the great tengu are highly intelligent and hold centuries of grudges |
• Oni (鬼): Demon-born creatures of immense physical power; volatile, territorial, and capable of spiritual disruption
• Inugami (犬神): Dog spirits formed through dark ritual, bound to a master with absolute and often unstable loyalty
• Yuki-onna(雪女): Spirits of the cold and snow; met most often in the mountain passes of northern Takamajima
• Kodama (木霊): Forest spirits inhabiting ancient trees; largely passive but sensitive to harm done to their grove
• Gashadokuro (餓者髑髏): Immense skeletal entities born from mass starvation and resentment; rare, but catastrophically dangerous

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FACTIONS

The Bureau of Onmyou (陰陽寮 Onmyōryō)

The Empire's official ministry for all religious, occult, and spiritual matters — and arguably its most powerful institution after the throne itself. The Bureau operates across every province, with a main Hall in Mikado and branch offices in each provincial capital.

The Bureau's responsibilities are extensive:

• The practice and regulation of onmyoudou within the Empire
• Divination and astrological advisory to the Emperor and Dajoukan
• The maintenance of the Reikai Pact and formal relations with Kami
• The election of the new Emperor at each era's beginning, through the celestial mandate reading
• The cataloguing and containment of malevolent spiritual entities
• The operation of the Reikai Archive

The Bureau is headed by the Dajou-Onmyōji (太政陰陽師), the Grand Onmyouji — currently a woman of sixty-three named Himegami Tsukishiro (姫神月白), a figure of immense institutional knowledge and carefully maintained political neutrality. She has served under three Emperors and is regarded by all factions as something slightly beyond normal politics.

Internal Ranks of the Bureau (ascending):

1. Minahoshi (皆星) — Apprentice: Students of onmyōdō in their training years, typically admitted between the ages of eight and twelve.
2. Hitohoshi (一星) — Single Star: Junior practitioners capable of basic divination and ward-setting.
3. Mihoshi (三星) — Three Stars: Mid-rank practitioners trained in shikigami summoning and exorcism.
4. Gohoshi (五星) — Five Stars: Senior practitioners capable of advanced onmyōdō; usually assigned to provincial offices.
5. Shichihoshi (七星) — Seven Stars: Master practitioners, few in number; assigned to major containment operations or Imperial advisory roles.
6. Dajou-Onmyouji (太政陰陽師): Grand Onmyouji. One per generation.

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The Hyakki (百鬼)

The successor organisation to the force that caused the Hyakki Yagyō, and the reason the Bureau of Onmyou maintains a standing response force. The current Hyakki is smaller and less powerful than its predecessor — the Reikai Pact drew many yōkai away from its ideology — but considerably more clandestine.

The Hyakki does not publicly announce its intentions or membership. It operates through cells, through the corruption of existing yōkai communities, and through the strategic placement of spirit seeds (rei-tane, 霊種) — objects of concentrated malevolent spiritual energy that, when left in a location long enough, warp the surrounding yōkai and sometimes awaken dormant gashadokuro.

Its current leadership is unknown even to the Bureau of Onmyou, who refer to it simply as "the Arrangement" (Toriawase, 取り合わせ) in official documents.

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The Oni Horde (鬼蛮族 Kibanzoku)

The organised military force of Ootakemaru's Onigashima. Unlike the Hyakki, the Oni Horde does not operate in secret — it announces itself through smoke on the horizon and the sound of war drums carried across the water. Its raids are violent, spectacular, and usually targeted at specific coastal locations, which has led Bureau analysts to suspect that the Horde's apparent savagery conceals a deeper strategic purpose.

What Ootakemaru actually wants is debated endlessly at the Imperial court. He has never made a formal demand. He has never sent an emissary. He simply raids, retreats, and waits.

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The Hagokoro Clan (刃心会 Hagokoro-kai) — The Blade-Heart Society

A clandestine network of ninja clans, the Hagokoro operate primarily in Hachimanfu territory, acting as a counterweight to the Hachimanfu's authority in the rural wilderness. They are not opposed to the Hachimanfu in principle — many of their members have served under Hachimanfu contracts in the past — but they are deeply opposed to what they see as the Hachimanfu's increasing willingness to let powerful clients exploit the peasant villages that have no other protection.

The Hagokoro take no payment from the villages they defend. Their funding sources are not publicly known. Their leadership structure is deliberately obscured, even from their own members.

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Meido (冥土) — The Underground

An underworld syndicate operating in the spaces beneath respectable society across all of Myōwa — black-market weapons, debt bondage, gambling operations, assassination contracts, and the trade in spiritually dangerous objects that the Bureau of Onmyou has attempted to confiscate and destroy. Meido is composed of both human criminals and a significant yōkai membership, making it uniquely resistant to conventional law enforcement.

Its name — Meido, the same word used for the land of the dead — is both a boast and a warning. The organisation's figurehead is known only as "the Ferryman" (Watashimori, 渡し守), a title rather than a name, implying that whoever holds it is responsible for moving things between the world of the visible and the world beneath it. The current Ferryman's identity is unknown. Some Bureau officials believe the Ferryman may not be human.

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MAGIC SYSTEM

Onmyōdō (陰陽道) — The Way of Yin and Yang

Onmyōdō is the primary magical tradition of Myōwa's human population, a system both philosophical and practical that treats the manipulation of spiritual forces as an extension of understanding the fundamental nature of reality. It is simultaneously an academic discipline, a spiritual practice, and a combat art, and it demands that its practitioners be all three simultaneously.

At its philosophical core, Onmyōdō rests on the tension and interchange between You (陽, Yang — the innate, the radiant, the fully expressed) and In (陰, Yin — the acquired, the hidden, the potential). This is not a simple binary of good and evil; both forces are necessary and neither is superior. The skill of an onmyōji is measured in their ability to work with this tension rather than force resolution upon it.

An important concept within Onmyōdō is the You-In Cycle — the principle that what begins as acquired skill (In) eventually becomes innate capability (Yō) through practice, and what was once innate can be consciously refined into something more nuanced through acquired understanding. A child learning to read labours at each character (In); an adult reads without thinking (Yō). An onmyōji is always navigating this cycle in their practice.

The Five Disciplines of Onmyoudou

1. Gogyou Jutsu (五行術) — Elemental Technique The combat application of the five elements. See the Gogyou section below.

2. Shikigami Summoning (式神召喚 Shikigami Shōkan) The art of calling forth and binding spiritual entities — shikigami — to serve the onmyōji's will. Shikigami range from minor constructs of folded paper animated with a fragment of the caster's spiritual energy (fuda-shiki, paper shikigami, used for scouting, message-carrying, and minor combat) to powerful entities of independent will that must be negotiated with as much as commanded.

Shikigami binding is considered the most dangerous discipline of Onmyōdō. A shikigami that exceeds its binding — or a binding that is poorly constructed — can turn on its summoner, and powerful shikigami, if not properly dissolved, persist in the material world and become youkai in their own right.

3. Kotodama (言霊) — Word-Soul The study and use of sacred language — words, names, and phrases imbued with spiritual force. At its simplest, kotodama involves the use of norito (祝詞, ritual prayers) to purify spaces, reinforce wards, or communicate with Kami. At its most advanced, it involves the speaking of true names (shinmei, 真名) — the fundamental spiritual designation of a being — which can bind, compel, or destroy depending on the skill and intent of the speaker.

Every significant spiritual entity has a true name. Finding it is a matter of research, intuition, and occasionally dangerous negotiation. An onmyōji who knows your true name has a degree of power over you that no physical strength can counter. This makes the Bureau of Onmyou's name-records one of the most sensitive documents in the Empire.

4. Fūsui (風水) — Wind-Water The art of reading and manipulating the flow of ki (気) through the landscape — the spiritual energy that moves through the world like invisible water. Fūsui practitioners can identify places where ki flows strongly (sites of power), where it has become stagnant (sites of misfortune), and where it has been deliberately disrupted (signs of hostile spiritual activity). At higher levels, they can redirect ki flows, creating or destroying spiritual landmarks.

Fūsui is used in the design of every significant Imperial building. The layout of Mikado, down to the placement of individual buildings, reflects centuries of fūsui optimisation.

5. Onmyou Divination (占術 Senjutsu) The practice of reading patterns in the natural and spiritual world to determine the most likely trajectory of events. Onmyou divination uses a combination of astrological observation, the casting of specially prepared sticks or tiles, and the reading of natural phenomena. It is considered less about predicting a fixed future and more about identifying the currents of tendency in a given situation — the directions in which things are inclined to move — so that a skilled practitioner can work with or against those tendencies.

Divination cannot see what the Kami do not permit to be seen. Some events — particularly those that carry great spiritual weight — appear as blind spots in divination, which the Bureau interprets as signs that something beyond normal spiritual dynamics is at play.

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Gogyou (五行) — The Five Moving Ones

The five elemental forces of Myōwa, used primarily in the combat and ritual applications of Onmyōdō. They are not simply physical elements but metaphysical principles that have physical expression.

• Fire (火 Ka) | Expansion, assertion, transformation | Flames, heat, explosive force | Passion, ambition, destruction
• Water (水 Sui) | Adaptation, flow, persistence | Currents, pressure, cold | Memory, emotion, patience
• Wood (木 Moku) | Growth, flexibility, upward movement | Living plants, wind through trees | Healing, regeneration, time
• Metal (金 Kin) | Precision, contraction, edge | Blades, sound resonance, crystallisation | Logic, boundary, finality
• Earth (土 Do) | Stability, absorption, weight | Stone, gravity, the body | Endurance, protection, rootedness

The Gogyou Cycle is as important as the elements themselves:

• Generative Cycle (相生 Sōsei): Wood feeds Fire; Fire creates Earth (ash); Earth bears Metal; Metal collects Water; Water nourishes Wood.
• Destructive Cycle (相克 Sōkoku): Wood breaks Earth; Earth dams Water; Water extinguishes Fire; Fire melts Metal; Metal cuts Wood.

Advanced onmyōji do not simply throw elemental energy at opponents — they read the elemental composition of a situation and apply force at the point of maximum disruption within the cycle.

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Yōjutsu (妖術) — Spirit-Craft

Where Onmyoudou is learned, Youjutsu is embodied. It is the collective term for the innate spiritual abilities of youkai and Kami — powers that arise not from study but from the fundamental nature of the being wielding them. A kitsune does not learn to charm; it charms because it is a kitsune. A dragon does not study storm-calling; it calls storms because it is a storm given form.

This apparent advantage is also a limitation. Yōjutsu cannot exceed the fundamental nature of the youkai wielding it — a tanuki can shapeshift into what it understands, but not into what is beyond its comprehension. A kappa cannot leave water indefinitely without weakening. Every yōjutsu has an inherent boundary defined by what the spirit is.

Onmyouji who study yōjutsu closely note that the most dangerous aspect is not its power ceiling but its unpredictability — because yōjutsu is not rule-governed in the way Onmyōdō is, it does not always respond to the same countermeasures. Facing an unknown youkai in combat requires rapid improvisation in a way that facing a known onmyōji technique does not.

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CULTURE AND DAILY LIFE

Religion and Spiritual Practice

Spiritual observance in Myōwa is embedded in daily life rather than segregated into formal worship hours. The typical Myōwan household maintains a small kamidana (神棚, spirit-shelf) — a miniature shrine housing paper tablets representing local Kami — and performs brief morning and evening observances involving offerings of food, water, and incense.

Larger community observances take the form of seasonal festivals, each tied to agricultural rhythms and spiritual events in the natural calendar. The most significant are the Goshinki (the five Imperial god rites, conducted in the capital), the Mizuho Harvest Accord (the eleven-day thanking of Mizuho's paddy spirits), and the Tanabata Vigil (Tanabata Morokoshi, 七夕諸越) — a midsummer night during which the barrier between the mortal world and the spirit world is considered at its thinnest, and in which families light paper lanterns and send them into the sky as messages to deceased relatives.

Law and Justice

Imperial law is written and administered through the Ritsuryou (律令) system — a codified legal framework that distinguishes between criminal law (ritsu) and administrative law (ryō). The Ritsuryou makes specific provisions for crimes involving spiritual entities, which are handled by Bureau of Onmyou magistrates rather than civilian courts.

In Hachimanfu territory, law is simpler and more immediate: disputes are resolved by appointed arbitrators drawn from the highest-ranked local warrior, and the concept of appeal is largely theoretical.

Art and Performance

The arts in Myōwa are not recreational luxuries but considered disciplines with spiritual dimensions. Ikebana (flower arrangement) is understood as a meditation on impermanence. Shodo (calligraphy) draws on kotodama — the belief that beautiful, precise writing carries spiritual weight that sloppy writing does not. Kabuki performance is descended directly from religious dance, and the most senior kabuki performers are considered to carry partial Kami blessing.

Music occupies a particular place in Myōwan culture: the biwa and shakuhachi are used by itinerant performer-monks called biwa-hōshi (琵琶法師) to carry news across the provinces and perform epic narratives of historical and mythological events. They are given free passage by essentially all political factions, considered neutral ground walking.

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CALENDAR AND TIME

Time in Myōwa is divided into two great epochs: Kamiyo (神代, the Age of Gods, abbreviated KY) and Hitoyo (人代, the Age of Humans, abbreviated HY). The transition point — Year 1 HY — marks the founding of the Yamato Empire.

Within the Hitoyo, years are further organised by Imperial Eras (年号 Nengō*), each named by the reigning Emperor and considered to carry its own spiritual character. The current era, Nagahiko (延彦, Extending Worthy), began in 726 HY with the ascension of the current Emperor. The present year is 748 HY, Nagahiko Era.

Eras are named through divination by the Bureau of Onmyou, which seeks auspicious celestial patterns and selects a name that reflects the hoped-for character of the era. This is considered one of the Bureau's most important functions; a poorly chosen era name is regarded as a spiritual inauspicious act with real consequences.

Months follow a lunar calendar and are named numerically. Days are named through a system combining the ten celestial stems (十干 jikkan) and twelve earthly branches (十二支 *jūnishi) — yielding a sixty-day cycle that repeats throughout the year and which is considered meaningful for timing rituals, negotiations, and significant undertakings.