The Imperial Families
Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 8:12 pmThe Imperial Families
The Recent Past
The Imperial Families have been blessed with a long line of successful Emperors and daimyo. Or at least, that is the official story as recorded in the Ikoma histories. In truth, the leadership of the Imperial Families has been ravaged by nepotism for generations, and while this has occasionally resulted in competent samurai holding positions of power, more often than not those in power are less skilled than their subordinates.
While most samurai would agree that Hantei XX was a wonderful Emperor in his youth, their praises tend to grow more vague when speaking of his later years. At some point around his seventieth birthday, the Emperor's mind began to leave him and he would often address courtiers by the names of samurai who had died decades earlier. This resulted in a steady series of name changes for those who attended the Imperial Court during this time, for no samurai wished to suggest that the Emperor had remembered their names incorrectly.
The Hantei's memory only seemed to grow worse as the years passed, and by his ninety-fifth birthday, he was essentially living in the past. His decrees at this time were quite confusing, as he frequently restored Clan borders to points where they had not existed in nearly half a century and once demanded to have a Scorpion Champion who had been dead for forty years brought before him to answer for his crimes against the Lion. The Scorpion did as they were bade, and soon the confused Seppun guards were leading away an urn of ashes with instructions to have it executed.
Realizing that the current situation could not stand, the Kakita Daimyo, Kakita Yasuhime, had a magnificent garden built at Seido Jurojin for the Emperor's ninety-seventh birthday. The Emperor visited the garden shortly thereafter and a series of Crane courtiers ensured that he was kept preoccupied with the beauty of the gardens instead of returning home. In his absence, the Emperor directed the events of Rokugan through a series of messages delivered to Otosan Uchi by helpful Crane couriers. Unsurprisingly, most of these missives favored the agendas of the Crane Clan.
Within a few weeks, however, the Emperor passed away in his sleep, paving the way for his eldest surviving son to claim the throne. Doji Hanako quickly levied accusations of murder against the Scorpion Clan, claiming that her guards had almost caught a hooded figure leaving the Emperor's bedchamber the night he died, but these claims of ninja activity were dismissed as "peasant superstition" by most everyone at court. Unwilling to embarrass herself further, Hanako allowed the matter to drop, much as she had done with the suspicious murder of her father two years prior.
The reign of Hantei XXI brought sanity back to the Imperial Court, and soon the reign of Hantei XX was little more than a distant, happily forgotten memory. Though Hantei XXI did not accomplish anything particularly notable during his fourteen years on the throne, his time as Emperor is remembered fondly as a time of peace and prosperity, if only in comparison to the previous and following Emperors. Unfortunately, in 740 he slipped on some ice on the way to his morning bath and injured his hip. Though the healers did not believe this to have been a serious injury, the Emperor's health steadily worsened until he passed away later that winter. The entire Empire mourned his death for a full week, far longer than had been given to his predecessor.
Hantei XXII thus took the throne at the age of seventeen. His first few years as Emperor resulted in a gradual but steady loss of power for the Imperial Families as the Clans more and more frequently treated him as a simple figurehead. That the young Hantei was rather inept at politics was blatantly obvious to the experienced courtiers of the Capital and manipulation of the Emperor's opinions and actions was rampant. With few allies to turn to, the Emperor decided to seek a wife in the hopes that he might find an ally who could support him in the courts as well as in his private life.
This plan failed miserably, as the bride the Hantei selected turned out to be a maho-tsukai in disguise. Though he was saved at the last moment from marrying such a horrible villain by Akodo Shimizu, the damage had been done to the Emperor's confidence. With no certainty left in his own decisions, the Hantei allowed himself to become the figurehead that the Clans wanted, much to the horror of the Imperial Families.
In the winter of 754, the Emperor disappeared on his way to Winter Court, sending waves of panic through the Empire. He reappeared near the end of the season in Dragon lands, having lost a few fingers and toes to frostbite during his flight through the snow-choked lands of the Phoenix. While many initially believed that the Emperor had been taken hostage by the Dragon, the Hantei appeared on the battlefield during the War of Iron Chrysanthemum, bringing an end to the conflict by revealing to the Lion Champion, Akodo Misaki, that he had taken refuge with the Dragon for his own protection, for he suspected that his yojimbo had planned to assassinate him on his way to Winter Court.
Protected by both Lion and Dragon armies, the Emperor remained in seclusion until the winter, when the Dragon opened their borders to the courtiers traveling to Kyuden Agasha for Winter Court at the end of 755. It proved to be a tense gathering, and during the first few weeks the Matsu Daimyo, Matsu Shikyo, saved the Emperor from a second assassination attempt. The Imperial Chancellor, Doji Masato, was exposed as the mastermind of the Gozoku plot and was executed by Suzume Wara, the Emerald Champion, who met his end later in the year in a kharmic strike with the Tortoise Clan Champion, one of Doji Masato's alleged co-conspirators.
Kakita Seiko, the daughter of former Emerald Champion Kakita Isora, claimed the Emerald Championship from her rivals as the Imperials launch a purge to root out Masato's conspirators. The Crane came under close scrutiny as the Imperials attempted to gut the Crane of their most influential samurai, but Seiko took control of the investigation before it could spiral too far out of control.
In protest for their treatment, the daimyo of the Crane family stabbed themselves, bound their fatal wounds, and met with the Emperor to protest the treatment of their Clan at the hands of the Imperial Families. Their deaths - one by one, in front of the horrified Emperor - were enough to make the Hantei realize what he had done, and as the last daimyo bled out in front of him, he announced that all of the Gozoku conspirators had been found and punished.
The Imperials Today
The Imperial Families have used the exposure of the Gozoku conspiracy as an excuse to ruthlessly reclaim their lost power. With the support of the Imperial Advisor, Agasha Muizu, the Otomo and Seppun spent the winter of 755 and most of the following year removing all threats to their power, whether through political blackmail or a flurry of lethal duels. A number of prominent and otherwise untouchable courtiers from the Great Clans simply disappeared on their way home from their winter courts, never to be seen again.
In the following spring, Hantei XXII returned to Otosan Uchi, which underwent a similar purge at the hands of the Otomo and Seppun families. Businesses that had been under the control of the Great Clans for generations were seized by the Otomo in a month of bloody attacks by Miharu claiming to be rooting out the last remnants of the Gozoku conspiracy. By the time the blood was finally washed from the streets by the spring rains, there was no question that Otosan Uchi was firmly in control of the Imperial Families.
Strict guidelines were put in place to prevent easy passage in and out of the Imperial Capital, ensuring that none who displeased the Imperial Families were allowed past its walls. This most notably included the Tortoise Clan, who - due to the involvement of their Champion in the Gozoku conspiracy - were still allowed to manage the Hub Villages around Otosan Uchi, but were forbidden from entering the Imperial Capital. A frustrated Crane poet remarked that Otosan Uchi had become "a forbidden city," and the name was quickly adopted by other courtiers as a way to show their disapproval with the Imperial Families and their creation of the Forbidden City.
While this purge of the Great Clans was being enacted, the Seppun looked when it was discovered that one of their own, Seppun Takahide, had been a willing participant in the Gozoku conspiracy. Takahide had never expected the Gozoku to resort to the murder of the Hantei and stepped forward to offer testimony against many of his fellow Seppun. With his testimony, the Seppun were able to brutally cut away the infected heart of their family to regain the Emperor's trust.
Having returned from a position of weakness to one of strength, the Imperial Families - and the Otomo in particular - took every step they could to set things right within the Empire. This attitude placed them in direct conflict with the Great Clans, many of whom suspected that the Otomo used the threat of the Gozoku to make a blatant power grab. The Emperor's announcement that the Gozoku had been dealt with brought an end to the purge, but the relationship between the Imperial Families and the Great Clans remains antagonistic.
Unfortunately, the Gozoku were not the only threat to the Emperor's power. During the War of Broken Fangs, the monk Turong discovered a well of healing and brought a drought of the restorative liquid back to the Empire. He gave the water to the Emperor's younger half-brother, Seppun Kato, who had been horribly burnt as a child. The water healed Kato's wounds, allowing the previously bedridden Imperial to shed his bandages and move freely about the Imperial Palace. With little to do to pass the time, Kato had grown up reading and studying the private journals of his ancestors and their advisors, including those that had been penned by Hantei XVI, the Steel Chrysanthemum.
Over the next few years, Seppun Kato began to undermine the rule of his brother while slowly gathering supporters of his own. Those who felt that the Hantei was a weak emperor stood with Kato in the shadows, watching as he spun webs of loyalty and deceit throughout the courts of the Empire. Though his goals are unknown, courtiers across the Empire already debate the extent of his ambition... and whether he might prove to be a stronger Emperor than his brother.
The Emperor
Hantei XXII: Hantei the XXII is in the seventeenth year of his reign. When he first ascended to the throne in 740, he was little more than a confused and frightened young boy. His near marriage to a disguised Bloodspeaker deeply affected the young Emperor, to the point of causing him to see a potential enemy behind the face of every blushing maiden or attractive courtier. The Emperor's discomfort around women soon became clear to the Clans, and over the course of the next decade Winter Court gradually became an event which only male courtiers attended.
In 754, the Emperor came to believe that his Seppun guards were planning to murder him on the way to Winter Court at Kyuden Isawa and frame the Phoenix for his death. He fled into the snow-choked forests of the Empire, eluding his guards and eventually finding his way to the borders of the Dragon, who took him in and nursed him back to health. After a lifetime of constant schedules and meetings, the Hantei found himself quite unprepared to handle the slow-paced and unscheduled pace of life within the lands of the Dragon, and in his boredom turned to studying the ways of the bushi with a local sensei.
His appearance at the end of the War of the Iron Chrysanthemum revealed that the Dragon had forged not only a new daisho for the Emperor, but also a suit of armor to protect him. The Emperor's time with the Dragon had also left him susceptible to the influence of the Dragon Champion, who convinced the Emperor to not only remain in the care of the Dragon for the Winter, but to also confront his fears and seek a wife. The announcement lifted the unspoken ban of females within the Imperial Court, and that winter representatives of each of the Great Clans traveled to Kyuden Agasha to make their cases to the Hantei's advisors, in the hopes of that by winning those closest to the Emperor to their side, they might earn a recommendation for their marriage candidates when the time came.
There was much competition and favor-trading between the Great Clans for the favor of the Emperor's advisors, but after the samurai of the Lion Clan not only saved the Hantei from an assassination attempt but also fended off an attack by Jama Suru, it came as a surprise to no one when he announced that he would take a Lion woman, Matsu Tokiyo, as his bride. Their wedding in the spring of 757 was a time of celebration for the entire Empire, and samurai and heimin alike are eagerly waiting to see whether their first child will be a boy or a girl.
Otomo Daimyo
Otomo Kiku: The current daimyo of the Otomo ascended to her position under awkward circumstances. Following the tragic drowning of Otomo Yao, the position passed to his brother, Otomo Akira, who was promptly lured into a lethal duel by agents of the traitorous Doji Masato. Suspecting that the Crane were attempting to cull the line of succession in an attempt to place a puppet in charge of the Otomo family, the doomed Akira transferred control of the Otomo family to his distant cousin Kiku before following his defeated yojimbo into the next life.
Unfortunately for Akira, he had not kept in touch with his distance cousin, and when Otomo Kiku made her first public appearance, it was rather difficult for her to hide the fact that she was quite pregnant...and also quite unmarried. The scandal raced through the courts, and within a week, the entire Empire was speculating as to the identity of the child's father. Kiku refused to "spoil the game," and even turned down a number of very sudden and unexpected marriage proposals from Seppun men willing to protect her honor by claiming the child as their own.
Though relatively inexperienced in political maneuvering, Kiku has quickly adapted to her new position. She prefers to govern the Otomo with a light touch, dealing with her responsibilities primarily through proxies and appointed representatives while she cares for her young son. Those wishing to speak with her in person must schedule their appointments far in advance, with many courtiers having to wait upwards of a year for their chance to meet with Kiku for a handful of minutes.
More than a few courtiers have started to wonder just what it is that the Otomo daimyo actually does that requires so much of her time, as most of her duties in the capital seem to have been delegated to others. Few speak of such things in public, however, for fear of earning the ire of the woman who is suspected of being a driving force in the recent Gozoku purges.
Seppun Daimyo
Seppun Sadako: Following the sepukku of her father in 743, Sadako stepped up to lead a family shamed by its inability to prevent a maho-tsukai from drawing close to the Emperor. In the fourteen years since, she has greatly increased the security surrounding the Imperial Families, and while the honor of her family has not been entirely restored, few can question Sadako's dedication to her duty. That more than a few of her fellow Seppun have been forced to become honorless assassins in the name of the protecting the Emperor is not a decision that sits well with her, but she understands the need for such action in these particularly troubling times.
Sadako recently stepped back from her duties in order to care for her first child and left the day-to-day operations of the family in the hands of her husband Katoshi. As a member of the Kakita family prior to his marriage, Katoshi's skill as a duelist had kept any accusations of favoritism from coloring his time spent as temporarily head of the Seppun family, despite a number of somewhat suspicious uses of Seppun guards at meetings beneficial to the Crane.
Katoshi's time as acting daimyo was fraught with failure and embarrassment, from loosing the Emperor on the way to Winter Court in 754 to his suspected involvement in the Gozoku conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor. His eventual sepukku at the height of the Gozoku purge cleansed the dishonor of his family and allowed Sadako to resume her duties as daimyo of the Seppun.
Sadako refuses to speak about her husband or his time leading the Seppun, and most of her subordinates have taken the hint and chosen to do the same. The change in leadership has been good for the Seppun, as it has allowed them to look forward past their recent failures and towards a future where they once again stand unwavering beside the other Imperial Families.
Miya Daimyo / Imperial Herald
Miya Kaemon: The war against Iuchiban took a heavy toll on the daimyo of the Miya family. Though he did not fight against the Bloodspeaker's army himself, Kaemon's fiance, an Akodo bushi, was slain during the Battle of Sleeping River. Kaemon was devastated by her death and fell deeply into a period of mourning. Despite having mostly recovered from such dark thoughts, Kaemon still remains little more than a shadow of his former self, and many whisper that his soul died on the same day as his fiance.
The attempts of the Akodo to find a new bride for Kaemon quickly grew to a point of annoyance for the daimyo, and he actively severed all ties with the Lion Clan in an attempt to keep their courtiers at bay. The Lion Champion, Akodo Misaki, is rumored to have taken personal offense at Kaemon's rejection of her own marriage proposal, but her recent marriage to a Crane courtier seems to have settled the enmity between them. For his part, however, Kaeimon still remembers how the Ikoma ruthlessly slandered the non-Lion women he had considered for marriage, ruining their reputations in the courts; the Crane he had been considering committed sepukku in shame and the Scorpion woman was recalled by her Clan and reassigned to a position in Boar lands, where he later learned that she had been killed by barbarians.
The Lion may consider their dealings finished, but Kaemon still carries a burning hatred in his heart for the Lion Clan, and his rants against the actions and honor of the young Lion Champion are as loud as they are frequent. As the alliance between the Scorpion and Lion has grown, Kaemon has felt his protests fall upon deaf ears, with one notable exception: the Emperor's brother, Seppun Kato, in whose company Kaemon has been seen more frequently in the past few years.
Imperial Advisor
Doji Suiminko: Doji Suiminko has risen to the position of Imperial Advisor among unprecedented circumstances. The former advisor, Agasha Muizu, was, to all appearances, the Emperor's closest friend and confidant. In the Month of the Dragon, 758, however, the Emperor was visited by the spirit of his ancestor, Hantei XIV, who warned the Emperor and his wife that Muizu was plotting against his life and advised his descendant to replace him with Doji Suiminko. After the Seppun searched the Emperor's chambers and consulted with the kami, they were forced to admit that the visitation was likely genuine, and the Hantei ordered the confused Muizu to be executed that very afternoon and appointed Suiminko to the position.
What nobody in the Empire realizes is that Muizu's execution and replacement was carefully orchestrated by the Kolat. Doji Suiminko is secretly Master Dream, who utilized a sacred rosary obtained by Kolat Agents in the Naga city of Iyotisha to contact the spirit of Hantei XIV and manipulate him into speaking with his descendant.
Now, Master Dream stands beside the Hantei and his wife, within reach of the Emerald Throne.
Imperial Chancellor
Ichiro Wattana: Ichiro Wattana was appointed to the position of Imperial Chancellor in 755, following the execution of the prior Chancellor, Doji Masato, for treason. With so many high profile courtiers having connections to Masato or the Crane, the choice of Wattana made a certain backwards kind of sense. Any given Crane or Scorpion courtier might be an uncovered Gozoku agent, but few could conceive of any scenario where a Badger courtier might be involved in the conspiracy to subvert the Emperor's power.
Exactly who made the suggestion to bestow the position upon Wattana is a matter of some speculation throughout the Empire, but Wattana has thus far managed to remain neutral in the few political dealings she has had since her appointment. While a capable courtier, the training she received from her parents is quite inferior to that provided by the Great Clans in their schools, making Wattana one of the few weak links in the Imperial bureaucracy.
Wattana, for her part, realized this and began spending most of her free time training with Dragonfly tutors that were loaned to her by Agasha Muizu. Though their own techniques are not as refined as those of the Great Clans, just being able to receive advice from courtiers who are accustomed to being manipulated by the Great Clans has been a welcome relief to the overwhelmed Badger. With the absorption of the Dragonfly into the Dragon Clan, Wattana has been left on her own, but she has risen to the challenge and now carries out her duties as quietly and efficiently as possible.
Emerald Champion
Kakita Seiko: The Emerald Championship of 756 was won by Kakita Seiko, the daughter of former Emerald Champion, Kakita Isora. Following the disappearance of her mother, Seiko trained at the feet of Kakita Takashi, a dubious distinction that left her with unsurpassed dueling skill and plenty of emotional trauma. She was quickly rushed through her gempuku and married to Doji Ryota, a relatively unknown courtier, and the couple was blessed with an early child, and another a few years later.
Despite his promising career, Ryora ended up in Seiko's shadow as she continued her dueling career, forcing him to remain home with their children and servants as she traveled across the Empire serving the Clan. Seiko has forbidden any servants from raising her children, which has only served to shackle her husband to their young son and overactive daughter. The bitterness between the Emerald Champion and her husband is well known among the Imperial Court, and it has only deepened as Seiko's new position has increased the duties upon her.
Seiko takes her position seriously and works hard to present herself as a dedicated and honorable servant of the Empire. The recent accusations against the Crane and the rumors circulating around the Empire of her mother's fall to darkness do not make it easy for her, but she has thus far managed to hold her head high despite the chaos swirling around her.
Jade Champion
Fairuz: The success of the ronin Fairuz at the Jade Championship was cause for quite a bit of scandalous rumor, as could only be expected. The Phoenix claimed that their shugenja were only defeated because Fairuz resorted to using illegal gaijin magic, while Yogo Toru, the Scorpion shugenja he defeated in the final round of the tournament, has been nothing but vocal in claiming that Fairuz sold his soul to Fu Leng and is elbow-deep in the darkest kinds of blood magic.
Most of the shugenja who have met with Fairuz, however, speak of the new Jade Champion as a very humble and polite man, despite his somewhat "odd" appearance. This is mostly due to the influence of his father's blood, for Fairuz's father was a gaijin sahir who fled the foreign city of Medinaat Al-Salaam after it was thrown into a fierce civil war. Traveling to Rokugan, Fairuz's father married a young ronin shugenja who died giving birth to their son. It was soon clear that the young child could speak to the spirits of the land much like his mother could, and seeking to pass on his wife's legacy to their child, Fairuz's father did his best to teach the young boy how to speak to these spirits.
As a result of this strange childhood, Fairuz grew up learning a strange combination of Rokugani prayers and gaijin magic that eventually culminated in a way of speaking with the kami that was an amalgam of both heritages. After the death of his father, Fairuz left the unaligned lands at the edge of the Empire that had been their home and traveled to the lands of the Scorpion, as his father had told him that his mother had been one of them before she was cast out for reasons of which she would never speak. The Scorpion shunned Fairuz and cast him out from their lands, however, claiming that no such woman had ever worn one of their masks.
Fairuz spent the next year wandering the Empire at a loss for what to do with his life, until the day that he came upon a Lion courtier who was set upon by bandits. Fairuz rushed to the woman's aid, striking down the bandits with his magic and healing her wounded yojimbo back to full health after the battle was over. The woman vowed to repay the debt she owed Fairuz, and despite his protests, two months later Fairuz found himself with an invitation to the Jade Championship.
Since the tournament, Fairuz and those few ronin shugenja who have sworn fealty to his name - or "House Fairuz" as he calls it, in memory of one of how his father claimed such things were done in his homeland - have taken up residence in the far northwestern corner of the Empire. His assistants - both former Seppun - have been training him in "proper" etiquette to ensure that he does not become another Kuni Tokaji, though Fairuz has thus far been somewhat reluctant to toss away his father's legacy in the name of proving himself to be a "true samurai."
Since the announcement of the Unicorn Clan's imminent return, Fairuz has been preoccupied with a prophecy one of his followers learned from the Oracle of Air. While the Oracle's words were cryptic, they hinted that his family of ronin would find themselves without allies when a "great wind" blew in from the desert. He believes that the two events are related and is searching for a way to lead his family out of destiny's cruel shadow.
Topaz Champion
Kaze: The winner of this year's Topaz Championship is Kaze, a Mantis bushi who prevailed over his rivals in a completely routine and normal tournament. The young samurai was, perhaps, more disciplined and better trained than many of his fellow Mantis, but among the ranks of the Great Clan samurai, his exceptionalism was blunted and did little to make him stand out. Following the conclusion of the tournament, Kakita Rika commanded the instructors of the Dueling Academy to improve their curriculum; while there is no shame in the Crane not winning the tournament, the victory of a Mantis samurai over the students of the Kakita was another matter entirely. If there was any consolation to the Crane, it was that the return of the Unicorn Clan almost completely overshadowed the tournament, all but ensuring that Kaze would be forgotten within months.
The Recent Past
The Imperial Families have been blessed with a long line of successful Emperors and daimyo. Or at least, that is the official story as recorded in the Ikoma histories. In truth, the leadership of the Imperial Families has been ravaged by nepotism for generations, and while this has occasionally resulted in competent samurai holding positions of power, more often than not those in power are less skilled than their subordinates.
While most samurai would agree that Hantei XX was a wonderful Emperor in his youth, their praises tend to grow more vague when speaking of his later years. At some point around his seventieth birthday, the Emperor's mind began to leave him and he would often address courtiers by the names of samurai who had died decades earlier. This resulted in a steady series of name changes for those who attended the Imperial Court during this time, for no samurai wished to suggest that the Emperor had remembered their names incorrectly.
The Hantei's memory only seemed to grow worse as the years passed, and by his ninety-fifth birthday, he was essentially living in the past. His decrees at this time were quite confusing, as he frequently restored Clan borders to points where they had not existed in nearly half a century and once demanded to have a Scorpion Champion who had been dead for forty years brought before him to answer for his crimes against the Lion. The Scorpion did as they were bade, and soon the confused Seppun guards were leading away an urn of ashes with instructions to have it executed.
Realizing that the current situation could not stand, the Kakita Daimyo, Kakita Yasuhime, had a magnificent garden built at Seido Jurojin for the Emperor's ninety-seventh birthday. The Emperor visited the garden shortly thereafter and a series of Crane courtiers ensured that he was kept preoccupied with the beauty of the gardens instead of returning home. In his absence, the Emperor directed the events of Rokugan through a series of messages delivered to Otosan Uchi by helpful Crane couriers. Unsurprisingly, most of these missives favored the agendas of the Crane Clan.
Within a few weeks, however, the Emperor passed away in his sleep, paving the way for his eldest surviving son to claim the throne. Doji Hanako quickly levied accusations of murder against the Scorpion Clan, claiming that her guards had almost caught a hooded figure leaving the Emperor's bedchamber the night he died, but these claims of ninja activity were dismissed as "peasant superstition" by most everyone at court. Unwilling to embarrass herself further, Hanako allowed the matter to drop, much as she had done with the suspicious murder of her father two years prior.
The reign of Hantei XXI brought sanity back to the Imperial Court, and soon the reign of Hantei XX was little more than a distant, happily forgotten memory. Though Hantei XXI did not accomplish anything particularly notable during his fourteen years on the throne, his time as Emperor is remembered fondly as a time of peace and prosperity, if only in comparison to the previous and following Emperors. Unfortunately, in 740 he slipped on some ice on the way to his morning bath and injured his hip. Though the healers did not believe this to have been a serious injury, the Emperor's health steadily worsened until he passed away later that winter. The entire Empire mourned his death for a full week, far longer than had been given to his predecessor.
Hantei XXII thus took the throne at the age of seventeen. His first few years as Emperor resulted in a gradual but steady loss of power for the Imperial Families as the Clans more and more frequently treated him as a simple figurehead. That the young Hantei was rather inept at politics was blatantly obvious to the experienced courtiers of the Capital and manipulation of the Emperor's opinions and actions was rampant. With few allies to turn to, the Emperor decided to seek a wife in the hopes that he might find an ally who could support him in the courts as well as in his private life.
This plan failed miserably, as the bride the Hantei selected turned out to be a maho-tsukai in disguise. Though he was saved at the last moment from marrying such a horrible villain by Akodo Shimizu, the damage had been done to the Emperor's confidence. With no certainty left in his own decisions, the Hantei allowed himself to become the figurehead that the Clans wanted, much to the horror of the Imperial Families.
In the winter of 754, the Emperor disappeared on his way to Winter Court, sending waves of panic through the Empire. He reappeared near the end of the season in Dragon lands, having lost a few fingers and toes to frostbite during his flight through the snow-choked lands of the Phoenix. While many initially believed that the Emperor had been taken hostage by the Dragon, the Hantei appeared on the battlefield during the War of Iron Chrysanthemum, bringing an end to the conflict by revealing to the Lion Champion, Akodo Misaki, that he had taken refuge with the Dragon for his own protection, for he suspected that his yojimbo had planned to assassinate him on his way to Winter Court.
Protected by both Lion and Dragon armies, the Emperor remained in seclusion until the winter, when the Dragon opened their borders to the courtiers traveling to Kyuden Agasha for Winter Court at the end of 755. It proved to be a tense gathering, and during the first few weeks the Matsu Daimyo, Matsu Shikyo, saved the Emperor from a second assassination attempt. The Imperial Chancellor, Doji Masato, was exposed as the mastermind of the Gozoku plot and was executed by Suzume Wara, the Emerald Champion, who met his end later in the year in a kharmic strike with the Tortoise Clan Champion, one of Doji Masato's alleged co-conspirators.
Kakita Seiko, the daughter of former Emerald Champion Kakita Isora, claimed the Emerald Championship from her rivals as the Imperials launch a purge to root out Masato's conspirators. The Crane came under close scrutiny as the Imperials attempted to gut the Crane of their most influential samurai, but Seiko took control of the investigation before it could spiral too far out of control.
In protest for their treatment, the daimyo of the Crane family stabbed themselves, bound their fatal wounds, and met with the Emperor to protest the treatment of their Clan at the hands of the Imperial Families. Their deaths - one by one, in front of the horrified Emperor - were enough to make the Hantei realize what he had done, and as the last daimyo bled out in front of him, he announced that all of the Gozoku conspirators had been found and punished.
The Imperials Today
The Imperial Families have used the exposure of the Gozoku conspiracy as an excuse to ruthlessly reclaim their lost power. With the support of the Imperial Advisor, Agasha Muizu, the Otomo and Seppun spent the winter of 755 and most of the following year removing all threats to their power, whether through political blackmail or a flurry of lethal duels. A number of prominent and otherwise untouchable courtiers from the Great Clans simply disappeared on their way home from their winter courts, never to be seen again.
In the following spring, Hantei XXII returned to Otosan Uchi, which underwent a similar purge at the hands of the Otomo and Seppun families. Businesses that had been under the control of the Great Clans for generations were seized by the Otomo in a month of bloody attacks by Miharu claiming to be rooting out the last remnants of the Gozoku conspiracy. By the time the blood was finally washed from the streets by the spring rains, there was no question that Otosan Uchi was firmly in control of the Imperial Families.
Strict guidelines were put in place to prevent easy passage in and out of the Imperial Capital, ensuring that none who displeased the Imperial Families were allowed past its walls. This most notably included the Tortoise Clan, who - due to the involvement of their Champion in the Gozoku conspiracy - were still allowed to manage the Hub Villages around Otosan Uchi, but were forbidden from entering the Imperial Capital. A frustrated Crane poet remarked that Otosan Uchi had become "a forbidden city," and the name was quickly adopted by other courtiers as a way to show their disapproval with the Imperial Families and their creation of the Forbidden City.
While this purge of the Great Clans was being enacted, the Seppun looked when it was discovered that one of their own, Seppun Takahide, had been a willing participant in the Gozoku conspiracy. Takahide had never expected the Gozoku to resort to the murder of the Hantei and stepped forward to offer testimony against many of his fellow Seppun. With his testimony, the Seppun were able to brutally cut away the infected heart of their family to regain the Emperor's trust.
Having returned from a position of weakness to one of strength, the Imperial Families - and the Otomo in particular - took every step they could to set things right within the Empire. This attitude placed them in direct conflict with the Great Clans, many of whom suspected that the Otomo used the threat of the Gozoku to make a blatant power grab. The Emperor's announcement that the Gozoku had been dealt with brought an end to the purge, but the relationship between the Imperial Families and the Great Clans remains antagonistic.
Unfortunately, the Gozoku were not the only threat to the Emperor's power. During the War of Broken Fangs, the monk Turong discovered a well of healing and brought a drought of the restorative liquid back to the Empire. He gave the water to the Emperor's younger half-brother, Seppun Kato, who had been horribly burnt as a child. The water healed Kato's wounds, allowing the previously bedridden Imperial to shed his bandages and move freely about the Imperial Palace. With little to do to pass the time, Kato had grown up reading and studying the private journals of his ancestors and their advisors, including those that had been penned by Hantei XVI, the Steel Chrysanthemum.
Over the next few years, Seppun Kato began to undermine the rule of his brother while slowly gathering supporters of his own. Those who felt that the Hantei was a weak emperor stood with Kato in the shadows, watching as he spun webs of loyalty and deceit throughout the courts of the Empire. Though his goals are unknown, courtiers across the Empire already debate the extent of his ambition... and whether he might prove to be a stronger Emperor than his brother.
The Emperor
Hantei XXII: Hantei the XXII is in the seventeenth year of his reign. When he first ascended to the throne in 740, he was little more than a confused and frightened young boy. His near marriage to a disguised Bloodspeaker deeply affected the young Emperor, to the point of causing him to see a potential enemy behind the face of every blushing maiden or attractive courtier. The Emperor's discomfort around women soon became clear to the Clans, and over the course of the next decade Winter Court gradually became an event which only male courtiers attended.
In 754, the Emperor came to believe that his Seppun guards were planning to murder him on the way to Winter Court at Kyuden Isawa and frame the Phoenix for his death. He fled into the snow-choked forests of the Empire, eluding his guards and eventually finding his way to the borders of the Dragon, who took him in and nursed him back to health. After a lifetime of constant schedules and meetings, the Hantei found himself quite unprepared to handle the slow-paced and unscheduled pace of life within the lands of the Dragon, and in his boredom turned to studying the ways of the bushi with a local sensei.
His appearance at the end of the War of the Iron Chrysanthemum revealed that the Dragon had forged not only a new daisho for the Emperor, but also a suit of armor to protect him. The Emperor's time with the Dragon had also left him susceptible to the influence of the Dragon Champion, who convinced the Emperor to not only remain in the care of the Dragon for the Winter, but to also confront his fears and seek a wife. The announcement lifted the unspoken ban of females within the Imperial Court, and that winter representatives of each of the Great Clans traveled to Kyuden Agasha to make their cases to the Hantei's advisors, in the hopes of that by winning those closest to the Emperor to their side, they might earn a recommendation for their marriage candidates when the time came.
There was much competition and favor-trading between the Great Clans for the favor of the Emperor's advisors, but after the samurai of the Lion Clan not only saved the Hantei from an assassination attempt but also fended off an attack by Jama Suru, it came as a surprise to no one when he announced that he would take a Lion woman, Matsu Tokiyo, as his bride. Their wedding in the spring of 757 was a time of celebration for the entire Empire, and samurai and heimin alike are eagerly waiting to see whether their first child will be a boy or a girl.
Otomo Daimyo
Otomo Kiku: The current daimyo of the Otomo ascended to her position under awkward circumstances. Following the tragic drowning of Otomo Yao, the position passed to his brother, Otomo Akira, who was promptly lured into a lethal duel by agents of the traitorous Doji Masato. Suspecting that the Crane were attempting to cull the line of succession in an attempt to place a puppet in charge of the Otomo family, the doomed Akira transferred control of the Otomo family to his distant cousin Kiku before following his defeated yojimbo into the next life.
Unfortunately for Akira, he had not kept in touch with his distance cousin, and when Otomo Kiku made her first public appearance, it was rather difficult for her to hide the fact that she was quite pregnant...and also quite unmarried. The scandal raced through the courts, and within a week, the entire Empire was speculating as to the identity of the child's father. Kiku refused to "spoil the game," and even turned down a number of very sudden and unexpected marriage proposals from Seppun men willing to protect her honor by claiming the child as their own.
Though relatively inexperienced in political maneuvering, Kiku has quickly adapted to her new position. She prefers to govern the Otomo with a light touch, dealing with her responsibilities primarily through proxies and appointed representatives while she cares for her young son. Those wishing to speak with her in person must schedule their appointments far in advance, with many courtiers having to wait upwards of a year for their chance to meet with Kiku for a handful of minutes.
More than a few courtiers have started to wonder just what it is that the Otomo daimyo actually does that requires so much of her time, as most of her duties in the capital seem to have been delegated to others. Few speak of such things in public, however, for fear of earning the ire of the woman who is suspected of being a driving force in the recent Gozoku purges.
Seppun Daimyo
Seppun Sadako: Following the sepukku of her father in 743, Sadako stepped up to lead a family shamed by its inability to prevent a maho-tsukai from drawing close to the Emperor. In the fourteen years since, she has greatly increased the security surrounding the Imperial Families, and while the honor of her family has not been entirely restored, few can question Sadako's dedication to her duty. That more than a few of her fellow Seppun have been forced to become honorless assassins in the name of the protecting the Emperor is not a decision that sits well with her, but she understands the need for such action in these particularly troubling times.
Sadako recently stepped back from her duties in order to care for her first child and left the day-to-day operations of the family in the hands of her husband Katoshi. As a member of the Kakita family prior to his marriage, Katoshi's skill as a duelist had kept any accusations of favoritism from coloring his time spent as temporarily head of the Seppun family, despite a number of somewhat suspicious uses of Seppun guards at meetings beneficial to the Crane.
Katoshi's time as acting daimyo was fraught with failure and embarrassment, from loosing the Emperor on the way to Winter Court in 754 to his suspected involvement in the Gozoku conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor. His eventual sepukku at the height of the Gozoku purge cleansed the dishonor of his family and allowed Sadako to resume her duties as daimyo of the Seppun.
Sadako refuses to speak about her husband or his time leading the Seppun, and most of her subordinates have taken the hint and chosen to do the same. The change in leadership has been good for the Seppun, as it has allowed them to look forward past their recent failures and towards a future where they once again stand unwavering beside the other Imperial Families.
Miya Daimyo / Imperial Herald
Miya Kaemon: The war against Iuchiban took a heavy toll on the daimyo of the Miya family. Though he did not fight against the Bloodspeaker's army himself, Kaemon's fiance, an Akodo bushi, was slain during the Battle of Sleeping River. Kaemon was devastated by her death and fell deeply into a period of mourning. Despite having mostly recovered from such dark thoughts, Kaemon still remains little more than a shadow of his former self, and many whisper that his soul died on the same day as his fiance.
The attempts of the Akodo to find a new bride for Kaemon quickly grew to a point of annoyance for the daimyo, and he actively severed all ties with the Lion Clan in an attempt to keep their courtiers at bay. The Lion Champion, Akodo Misaki, is rumored to have taken personal offense at Kaemon's rejection of her own marriage proposal, but her recent marriage to a Crane courtier seems to have settled the enmity between them. For his part, however, Kaeimon still remembers how the Ikoma ruthlessly slandered the non-Lion women he had considered for marriage, ruining their reputations in the courts; the Crane he had been considering committed sepukku in shame and the Scorpion woman was recalled by her Clan and reassigned to a position in Boar lands, where he later learned that she had been killed by barbarians.
The Lion may consider their dealings finished, but Kaemon still carries a burning hatred in his heart for the Lion Clan, and his rants against the actions and honor of the young Lion Champion are as loud as they are frequent. As the alliance between the Scorpion and Lion has grown, Kaemon has felt his protests fall upon deaf ears, with one notable exception: the Emperor's brother, Seppun Kato, in whose company Kaemon has been seen more frequently in the past few years.
Imperial Advisor
Doji Suiminko: Doji Suiminko has risen to the position of Imperial Advisor among unprecedented circumstances. The former advisor, Agasha Muizu, was, to all appearances, the Emperor's closest friend and confidant. In the Month of the Dragon, 758, however, the Emperor was visited by the spirit of his ancestor, Hantei XIV, who warned the Emperor and his wife that Muizu was plotting against his life and advised his descendant to replace him with Doji Suiminko. After the Seppun searched the Emperor's chambers and consulted with the kami, they were forced to admit that the visitation was likely genuine, and the Hantei ordered the confused Muizu to be executed that very afternoon and appointed Suiminko to the position.
What nobody in the Empire realizes is that Muizu's execution and replacement was carefully orchestrated by the Kolat. Doji Suiminko is secretly Master Dream, who utilized a sacred rosary obtained by Kolat Agents in the Naga city of Iyotisha to contact the spirit of Hantei XIV and manipulate him into speaking with his descendant.
Now, Master Dream stands beside the Hantei and his wife, within reach of the Emerald Throne.
Imperial Chancellor
Ichiro Wattana: Ichiro Wattana was appointed to the position of Imperial Chancellor in 755, following the execution of the prior Chancellor, Doji Masato, for treason. With so many high profile courtiers having connections to Masato or the Crane, the choice of Wattana made a certain backwards kind of sense. Any given Crane or Scorpion courtier might be an uncovered Gozoku agent, but few could conceive of any scenario where a Badger courtier might be involved in the conspiracy to subvert the Emperor's power.
Exactly who made the suggestion to bestow the position upon Wattana is a matter of some speculation throughout the Empire, but Wattana has thus far managed to remain neutral in the few political dealings she has had since her appointment. While a capable courtier, the training she received from her parents is quite inferior to that provided by the Great Clans in their schools, making Wattana one of the few weak links in the Imperial bureaucracy.
Wattana, for her part, realized this and began spending most of her free time training with Dragonfly tutors that were loaned to her by Agasha Muizu. Though their own techniques are not as refined as those of the Great Clans, just being able to receive advice from courtiers who are accustomed to being manipulated by the Great Clans has been a welcome relief to the overwhelmed Badger. With the absorption of the Dragonfly into the Dragon Clan, Wattana has been left on her own, but she has risen to the challenge and now carries out her duties as quietly and efficiently as possible.
Emerald Champion
Kakita Seiko: The Emerald Championship of 756 was won by Kakita Seiko, the daughter of former Emerald Champion, Kakita Isora. Following the disappearance of her mother, Seiko trained at the feet of Kakita Takashi, a dubious distinction that left her with unsurpassed dueling skill and plenty of emotional trauma. She was quickly rushed through her gempuku and married to Doji Ryota, a relatively unknown courtier, and the couple was blessed with an early child, and another a few years later.
Despite his promising career, Ryora ended up in Seiko's shadow as she continued her dueling career, forcing him to remain home with their children and servants as she traveled across the Empire serving the Clan. Seiko has forbidden any servants from raising her children, which has only served to shackle her husband to their young son and overactive daughter. The bitterness between the Emerald Champion and her husband is well known among the Imperial Court, and it has only deepened as Seiko's new position has increased the duties upon her.
Seiko takes her position seriously and works hard to present herself as a dedicated and honorable servant of the Empire. The recent accusations against the Crane and the rumors circulating around the Empire of her mother's fall to darkness do not make it easy for her, but she has thus far managed to hold her head high despite the chaos swirling around her.
Jade Champion
Fairuz: The success of the ronin Fairuz at the Jade Championship was cause for quite a bit of scandalous rumor, as could only be expected. The Phoenix claimed that their shugenja were only defeated because Fairuz resorted to using illegal gaijin magic, while Yogo Toru, the Scorpion shugenja he defeated in the final round of the tournament, has been nothing but vocal in claiming that Fairuz sold his soul to Fu Leng and is elbow-deep in the darkest kinds of blood magic.
Most of the shugenja who have met with Fairuz, however, speak of the new Jade Champion as a very humble and polite man, despite his somewhat "odd" appearance. This is mostly due to the influence of his father's blood, for Fairuz's father was a gaijin sahir who fled the foreign city of Medinaat Al-Salaam after it was thrown into a fierce civil war. Traveling to Rokugan, Fairuz's father married a young ronin shugenja who died giving birth to their son. It was soon clear that the young child could speak to the spirits of the land much like his mother could, and seeking to pass on his wife's legacy to their child, Fairuz's father did his best to teach the young boy how to speak to these spirits.
As a result of this strange childhood, Fairuz grew up learning a strange combination of Rokugani prayers and gaijin magic that eventually culminated in a way of speaking with the kami that was an amalgam of both heritages. After the death of his father, Fairuz left the unaligned lands at the edge of the Empire that had been their home and traveled to the lands of the Scorpion, as his father had told him that his mother had been one of them before she was cast out for reasons of which she would never speak. The Scorpion shunned Fairuz and cast him out from their lands, however, claiming that no such woman had ever worn one of their masks.
Fairuz spent the next year wandering the Empire at a loss for what to do with his life, until the day that he came upon a Lion courtier who was set upon by bandits. Fairuz rushed to the woman's aid, striking down the bandits with his magic and healing her wounded yojimbo back to full health after the battle was over. The woman vowed to repay the debt she owed Fairuz, and despite his protests, two months later Fairuz found himself with an invitation to the Jade Championship.
Since the tournament, Fairuz and those few ronin shugenja who have sworn fealty to his name - or "House Fairuz" as he calls it, in memory of one of how his father claimed such things were done in his homeland - have taken up residence in the far northwestern corner of the Empire. His assistants - both former Seppun - have been training him in "proper" etiquette to ensure that he does not become another Kuni Tokaji, though Fairuz has thus far been somewhat reluctant to toss away his father's legacy in the name of proving himself to be a "true samurai."
Since the announcement of the Unicorn Clan's imminent return, Fairuz has been preoccupied with a prophecy one of his followers learned from the Oracle of Air. While the Oracle's words were cryptic, they hinted that his family of ronin would find themselves without allies when a "great wind" blew in from the desert. He believes that the two events are related and is searching for a way to lead his family out of destiny's cruel shadow.
Topaz Champion
Kaze: The winner of this year's Topaz Championship is Kaze, a Mantis bushi who prevailed over his rivals in a completely routine and normal tournament. The young samurai was, perhaps, more disciplined and better trained than many of his fellow Mantis, but among the ranks of the Great Clan samurai, his exceptionalism was blunted and did little to make him stand out. Following the conclusion of the tournament, Kakita Rika commanded the instructors of the Dueling Academy to improve their curriculum; while there is no shame in the Crane not winning the tournament, the victory of a Mantis samurai over the students of the Kakita was another matter entirely. If there was any consolation to the Crane, it was that the return of the Unicorn Clan almost completely overshadowed the tournament, all but ensuring that Kaze would be forgotten within months.