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The Mighty Shogunate

It is the Year of the Hawk, Gold Era of the 3rd Epoch of the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate (more informally, the Third Year of the Gold Hawk). According to a future history the first cases of the magical disease that will later be known as the Great Contagion will surface in approximately 100 years time but, for now, the Shogunate is at its zenith.

A force worthy of respect, it commands the loyalty of tens of thousands of Dragon-Blooded and millions of mortal men under arms, as well as the uncounted numbers who work to keep the machinery of civilisation turning. It fills the air with skyships and organises the weather with Sky Mantis Towers, and while the lot of the average inhabitant of Creation is, perhaps, less than that at the height of the First Age, at least they not likely to be the subject of random experimentation by an insane god-king. This was the justification used by the Terrestrial leaders of the Usurpation, even as the Sidereals began to withdraw from the face of history.

However, the Dragon-Blooded are fractious, their passions are roused easily, and all-out civil war seems to be always just around the corner, to those who know the signs. To the unExalted masses demigods ruled the world, creating wonders and taking what they wanted in return, and this was the way it had always been.

A Brief History

“Before it is possible to understand where the Shogunate is, it is first necessary to understand how it got there.” So says every teacher of history across Creation before his first lesson with a new class, and there is a certain truth to it. For without history there is no record of the achievements to be emulated (and mistakes to be avoided) of a person’s predecessors, and it is entirely possible to argue that without history, a people doesn’t truly exist. The history below is written in the blood of the millions, unknown and unacknowledged, who died to make it possible.

The Usurpation

The first blow of the uprising of the Dragon-Blooded was the slaughter of the Solars at a festival held in their honour. The majority of them died on that night, although the butcher’s bill was horrendous, with hundreds of Dragon-Blooded and hundreds of times that many mortals, soldiers and civilians, dying in the initial phase of the all-out attack. The battle itself raged for the night and all of the following day, entire districts of the ancient city of Meru being reduced to rubble or used as weapons by the retaliating Solars, Curse-maddened or otherwise. When the last of them finally fell, the survivors were faced with a shattered city, more than a million dead and dying, and a war that was barely even beginning.

The bloodbath that followed is generally considered a shameful, but necessary, part of the war that forged the Shogunate, as the half-caste children of the Solars, their concubines, creations and slaves were all put to the sword, rather than have them become a future threat to the security of a post-Anathema Creation. The war was, in truth, won in that first terrible battle, but some of the Solars escaped, or were never there at all, and would live to wreak a terrible revenge on the victorious Dragon-Blooded, in some cases over the course of centuries before being finally put down.

The First Shogun

After the first stages of the Solar Purge were complete it fell to the surviving Dragon-Blooded generals and leaders to decide what form their rule would take. After days of politicking (that included much metaphorical and literal backstabbing), it was determined that since they were soldiers, their government would take a military form. By a narrow margin of votes amongst the gathered Exalted, General Juthan Xu was proclaimed Shogun Xu, while the remaining soldiers became his daimyos, and they would rule the lands of Creation in his stead.

The early years of Shogun Xu’s rule were a period of consolidation, and the occasional outbreak of Anathematic violence as a Solar emerged to slaughter a family of Terrestrials, or a previously-safe Manse would suddenly become an autonomous battle-fortress, using Essence cannon, vitality mines and other, stranger, weapons to decimate its surroundings. The first signs of Dragon-Blooded fractiousness began to show themselves in this time, as the daimyos, each in charge of an administrative district, began to dispute such things as borders and resources, with each dispute having a cost in lives and materiel. Fortunately the Usurpation had taken the majority of the Solar-created First Age infrastructure intact, so more ships could always be built and mortals would always breed replacements.

Dissent

A World of Wonders

Creation under the Shogunate is a time of great deeds and miracles of artifice. Vast cities rise hundreds of feet into the air, skyremes ply the clouds with goods from every part of the world, and overseeing everything are the Dragon-Blooded, each of them a demigod. To live in the Shogunate is to live in a world where the problems of hunger, disease and poverty have been largely eradicated, a virtual paradise compared to the lot of the peasantry in the Age to come.

Annulus

Approximately 1500 miles north and west of the Blessed Isle lies, or rather floats, Annulus – companion to ancient Luthe that sank beneath the waves during the Usurpation. Originally meant as a base of operations for the navies of the Deliberative in the days before skyremes were perfected, it floats ten yards above the surface of the ocean, serene and unmoving. Its origin as a military port is reflected in the Swirling Wall, a ring of maelstroms that circle Annulus eternally, making approach along the sea hazardous for those who do not know the secret to navigating them.

The city itself takes the form of three sets of flat rings of gold-flecked blue stone, arranged in towers that reach a quarter of a mile into the sky, with the lowest triplet being docks for the wet navy that still patrols the Great Western Ocean and the Inland Sea, while the uppermost rings now act as skydocks. The rings in between, five layers in all, each a league in diameter and half a mile wide, are where its millions of inhabitants live and work, worship and play. Many of those who visit Annulus for the first time are struck dumb in awe at the sheer scale of its construction, something that allows residents to spot newcomers with ease, gently mocking them with the term “gapers”.

The daimyo makes his court in Annulus, on the uppermost layer of the Gold Tower, ruling what is both the largest and the emptiest administrative district in the Shogunate, however it is also one of the most heretical. With alarming regularity Anathema cults spring up in the city, and although never large and never strong, they require strong and forceful measures to quell while still small. In response one of these incidents the monks of the Seaborn Monastery built one of the largest temples to the Danaa’d in Creation here, and the Immaculate presence is anything but subtle.

Chiaroscuro

The soaring glass towers of Chiaroscuro are rightfully famous across Creation, and the sight of sunrise gleaming through the crystal spires has been known to move even the most jaded resident to tears. Some stretch almost a thousand feet into the sky and are marvels of geomantic engineering, standing defiantly where others would collapse in on themselves. Almost as well-known, but nowhere near as visible, is the underwater district of the city – wherein humans, Dragon-Blooded and the People of the Waves co-exist in a strange world of blue-green glass and shifting light.

A major centre for the arts in the South, the academies and salons of the glass city produce some of the finest elemental sculpture anywhere in Creation (particularly since the loss of Zarlath), and places in renowned tutors’ classes are booked years or even decades in advance. Chiaroscuro is also a centre for study of the martial arts, the fiery nature of the Pole feeding the temperament of the populace and adding the phrase “common as a Chiaroscuro brawl” to common parlance, and the many weapon schools and dojos dotted around the city provide a ready source of soldiers and mercenaries.

Chiarosuro has recovered from the Wyld-damage inflicted during the initial stages of the Kodama Breakthrough, but some parts of the city remain off-limits to the unExalted population as a result of ravager propaganda still being found in the poorer quarters of the city. The Kodama incident also lead to the construction of additional skydocks in and around the district, taking the total in Chiaroscuro prefecture alone to fully 17, and skycraft are as common in these southern skies as they are above Hollow.

The current daimyo has not visited the city for over a decade, leading gossip-mongers and the more raucous dispatch sheets to wonder what insult was done to him by its government that could cause this snub. Whatever the cause, the forces of the military remain on prominent display, and so the apparent distance does not cause the common man much worry.

Deheleshen

Dol-Arvor

Also known as “the City of Glowing Roads”, Dol-Arvor was designed and built during the Deliberative Period by one of the Anathema, in the otherwise barren landscape of the northwest peninsula. A Fire-aspected Demesne was forced and then tapped with a great Manse constructed above the pool of bubbling lava that marks the heart of the upwelling of Essence. This lava, channelled under the streets and boulevards of the city, provides heat and light to the streets, radiating upwards through long black grilles inset into the roads.

Agriculture was also fostered by the molten rock, channelled beyond the city proper and into large canals that line the fields outside Dol-Arvor, the heat they provide allowing crops such as wheat, corn and even grapes to be grown in the otherwise hostile lanscape off the desolate North. It is this that also provides the balance of the city’s trade, and Arvorian bread and wine are sold all across the North, their quality demanding high prices that are readily paid.

Following the Usurpation Dol-Arvor became the capital of the Sona administrative district, and several skydocks were constructed as a result, although these, being outside the heating system that keeps the rest of the city comfortably balmy, are unpopular amongst the daimyo’s soldiers, and they are often viewed as punishment duty. The current daimyo has secretly been sponsoring expeditions to the abandoned mountain city of Gethamane, but the presence in the city that drives the Terrestrial Exalted away makes progress slow, and the creatures of the Underways render a mortal’s lifespan within the mountain-city down to a matter of days.

Dol-Arvor contains a gate to Yu-Shan (#34 on the map inside Exalted: the Sidereals), but this information is restricted to the daimyo and her inner circle, only one of whom has been permitted to visit Yu-Shan by the Sidereal Exalted.

Hollow

Meru

Once the capital city of Creation, where the Solar Deliberative met to discuss and confer on matters that would affect billions of lives, ancient Meru is now a shattered remnant of its once tremendous glory. Entire districts lie in ruins, with rubble strewn across almost every street and many pieces (some the size of small houses) flung for miles beyond the city’s walls, where they often caused further devastation.

Meru is far from entirely abandoned; the initial fighting of the Purge was largely concentrated around the central and western quarters, and while reminders of the battle four centuries ago are everywhere, there are people willing to make a living here. One reason for the continued inhabitation of the city is the preponderance of Anathematic artefacts and buildings, to the point that the Office of Residual Menaces has a department set aside specifically to monitor Meru.

Amongst the off-limits areas are the Imperial Manse, the Grand Hall of the Sun and Golden Towers – all three of these sites have a sentence of summary execution for all who cross the limits, assuming that they survive. Even beyond these areas of certain death there are large sections of Meru that are dangerous even for the Dragon-Blooded to enter, even after four hundred years not all of the remnants of the Solar reign have been expunged, but there are also still wonders to be found within, and every so often a group of young and adventurous Terrestrials venture in. Not all of them return.

The city still has tremendous prestige attached to it, particularly with the first Shogun deciding to build his court on a slope of the Imperial Mountain that overlooked the less-ruined sections of it, and the Meru district is, by tradition, ruled by the Shogun himself, although a representative is usually appointed.

Sperimin

A city of miracles and wonders even in the magical time of the Shogunate, Sperimin’s reputation as the home of the premier colleges of sorcery and the occult in Creation is far more known than its reputation as a city half-abandoned due to the legacies of its Solar architect. Great Manses and entire libraries lie empty due to the paranoia of a long-dead Anathema, who seeded the later construction with booby-traps, Essence-drainers and every other cunning defence his insane mind could conceive.

Despite the death and destruction caused by the city itself, it is generally considered one of the safest places to live throughout Creation due to the fact that it is simply impossible for one person to commit violence upon another while within its borders. While the exact cause of this effect is unknown, it has had the consequence that Sperimin is often at the forefront of locations to hold negotiations between potentially hostile parties – the Peace of Sperimin negotiated a century ago is the most well known example of such.

There are said to be hundreds of ancient artefacts within Sperimin, either inside the abandoned districts, or in some currently unknown underground store - the fabled Book of Three Circles is the most famous of these. Created at the behest of the Solar Deliberative and containing a copy of every spell ever wrought under its auspices, the quest for the Book has become the obsession of more than one sorceror, some of who never recover or survive their mania.

The lack of violence within Sperimin gives it an unusual position within the Shogunate, since coercion and military strength are simply unable to function the usual methods of government do not work. As such it is accorded a special status that amounts to a declaration of trust from the government that Sperimin will never work against it in return for no reprisals being taken against the relatives of those within for potentially treasonous behaviour or remarks. The safest city in Creation so in that most important of ways – politically.

State of Play

The Dragon-Blooded Shogunate is vast, covering as it does most of Creation, and its enormous power reaches even into those areas where its censors, magistrates and tax collectors do not. With such a huge area to be covered most of the information below will be inaccurate or just plain wrong in many place, but they can be considered to be generally true. Most of the Shogunate, if it doesn’t adhere to the stereotypes given below will hew closely to them.

Government

Hundreds of millions of men and women across Creation can call themselves citizens of the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate. They rely on it for their security and repay it with their blood, sweat and taxes (often at the same time), but the vastly mortal majority often has little or no idea as to how the decisions of their rulers are reached.

Structure

The shogun is the head of state for the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate and to him (or her) is given supreme executive power over its citizens, from the lowliest helot to the mightiest daimyo. The shogun has direct command over the fearsome Imperial armed forces (some of the best equipped formations in Creation) and over the Shogunate bureaucracy, that agglomeration of hundreds of thousands of men and women who ensure that government continues to operate as it should.

Beneath the shogun are approximately 200 daimyos, each of which rules over a single administrative district. These range in power and prestige from the wealthy and famous Hollow administrative district which lies at the heart of the River Province, to the little-regarded Delat administrative district, which covers the south-western archipelagos and is rich in sand and volcanic rock. Each daimyo is responsible for maintaining both local military and civilian structures within his borders, for keeping the peace within those borders, and for providing the appropriate tithe in men, materiel and tax revenue to the Shogun at the start of every year.

Most daimyos will further subdivide their territory into areas most commonly called prefectures, with each one covering either a single notable city or a several towns and villages. This is at the discretion of the individual daimyo, however, and some prefer to rule their territory directly, using a cabinet of ministers and generals rather than trusting to prefects to look after their interests. Within a city the machinery of the prefecture has tended to subsume any pre-existing governance, while in more rural prefectures new towns, centrally located, often spring up to provide a centre to operate from.

Complications

The picture painted above is one of a relatively stable structure of government, where the chain of command is easily followed and fealty is owed to your direct superior. Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth.

A nearly incomprehensible web of loyalties to family and friends, party and brotherhood bind the upper echelons of the Shogunate together while, at the same time, forcing them apart based on shared or implied enmities, leading to a black joke common amongst the armies of the daimyos that today’s dinner guests can be tomorrow’s mortal enemies. This web has, over the years, travelled down the social order, to the point where all but the lowliest clerks and soldiers may have their loyalties divided and every decision must be weighed in terms of how it will affect these relationships.

Religion

The matter of religion within the Shogunate is a complex one. Recent shoguns have promoted the Immaculate Order as their preferred method of prayer and worship, and the visible temporal power of the Immaculate monks, as well as their demonstrate prowess whenever a Wyld Hunt is called, has lead to a recent upsurge in its popularity, but there are many other, far older, systems of prayer and worship still extant in Creation.

Ancestor Worship

In a society as inculcated with military virtues as the Shogunate the worship of one’s ancestors is natural. The culture of honour requires a deep knowledge of the deeds of one’s parents and grandparents, and who better to tell their stories than themselves, or rather their ghosts? Many old, established families (Dragon-Blooded or mortal) will have a shrine dedicated to their ancestors somewhere in their houses, a place where someone in search of guidance can pray in the hope of receiving a message from the Underworld.

Naturally, some ancestors are better known than others, and the founder of a large, successful family can often find himself as the spiritual head of a large group of worshippers, not all of whom need be his descendants. The major obstacle that ancestor worship has to overcome as compared to the worship of the gods is that the ghosts of one’s ancestors have great difficulty operating in Creation, and so while the practice is widespread it is closer in structure to cult worship (see below), but without the problems of proscription.

The Immaculate Faith

The Immaculate faith of the Shogunate era is very different from that practiced by the Scarlet Dynasty during the Age of Sorrows. Rather than a largely monolithic Order, the monks of this time are based all across Creation, with each order having one primary temple based in the appropriate Direction, but having many smaller ones elsewhere. It emphasises self-improvement, personal responsibility and self-reliance, with the Immaculate Dragons enshrined as ideals to strive for, and while it does teach that the Exalted are more spiritually advanced that mortals it also says that this means the Dragon-Blooded should strive harder than their subjects.

Most settlements within the Shogunate will have an Immaculate shrine or two for its followers to pray at, while larger cities often have multiple temples of varying opulence. The Vestal of Sextes Jylis in Hollow is a particularly spectacular example of the richer and more famous temples – its dome of green jade fills the interior with forest-shaded light, and makes it a destination for pilgrims from all across the East. Over the last hundred years it has gained significant popularity due to being the professed faith of three consecutive shoguns, and although it has not yet become the state religion many cultural commentators believe that this is only a matter of time.

Local Gods

Every village, town and city in Creation has a shrine, sometimes many, to its patron divinity, a sacred place where offerings and prayers can be left. Before battle every soldier in the Legion will pray to its patron god, hoping to live through the day. All across Creation, scenes like this play out every day, but sometimes the god listens and grants the request. This is because prayer forms the currency of Heaven. With enough prayer a once humble village spirit can have a palace built in Yu-Shan, host parties for her fellow divinities and generally get her feet (or applicable appendages) on the first rung of the social climbing ladder.

And so blessings are granted, gifts are given, and favours are done, but the relationship between the local gods and their worshippers is, by necessity, a covert one on the part of the god. An ancient edict forbids any direct intervention by a god within Creation, and although this rule was frequently broken even during the Deliberative, the censure of the Celestial Bureaucracy is still feared.

Cults

In the Shogunate the term “cult” is almost universally pejorative and refers to those who engage in proscribed forms of worship. These generally fall into one of four kinds: Anathema worshippers, death cults, followers of the Yozis and finally ravagers, those who have been twisted by the Fae. Of these it is the first and last that receive the majority of attention from the Office of Illegal Worship, since they represent the most imminent threat to the government, but all will be exterminated once sufficient resources are available. Those who engage in other forms of “fringe” worship are usually left alone, once their group has been thoroughly infiltrated and declared harmless.

Enemies

Compared to the Age of Sorrows, the ranks of those arrayed against Creation are far less numerous and varied during the time of the Shogunate. That is not to say it is without foes, however, if nothing else the implacable hatred of the Fair Folk for the shaped lands will continue to burn until they or Creation are destroyed.

Anathema

Fair Folk

Deathlords

The Military