¶ Overview
A seafaring culture of feudal honor, patriarchal tradition, family schools of magic, martial prowess, and a paternal insistence on excellence, the Ryotai were the only Quinternian civilization to survive the Deluge outside of the Mistvales.
Technically an Empire, the hereditary Clan Tozawa Emperor rules nominally, while the Shogun rules in practice. Per Imperial decree, the Daimyos, the heads of both the ruling clan and prefectures, elect the Shogun from their ranks to serve as military secretary and primary advisor to the Emperor. Traditionally, the elected Shogun divests from his Prefecture, giving its rule over to his sons or a seneschal in order to go to the capital and administer the empire in the name of the Emperor. Officially, the Shogun oversees the standing army and navy of the Empire, all conscripted from the other Daimyos, while other advisors deal with trade, commerce, agriculture, etc., all reporting ultimately to the Emperor. In practice, the Emperor would never issue a large-scale decree on any subject without first consulting the Shogun on its “military impacts,” while the Shogun would never undertake large-scale military action without first informing the Emperor of his intent. Fortunately for the Empire, the 2,000-year Tozawa Imperial Dynasty has always been fast friends, allies, and intermarried cousins with Clan Ryota, whom have supplied all of the elected shoguns since the fall of Gokutawan infernalism, save one, in a generation where Clan Ryota had only daughters. At that time, the eldest Ryota daughter married the Hideyoshi Daimyo, whom eventually secured election as Shogun with support from Clans Ryota and Tozawa. Before the Deluge, serious challengers arose from time to time, and while some came close to unseating Clan Ryota dominance, honor, tradition, politics, inertia, and Imperial support have always kept them in their position.
During the Deluge, the waves didn’t reach the highest parts of the more mountainous Ryotan isles, as the seas around the steep volcanic islands of Ryotai, being otherwise quite deep, mitigated the height of the tsunamis. Several outlying islands were obliterated, but the capital and two other mountain prefectures survived relatively intact. Much of the land has been resettled, but they are nowhere near close to repopulating to their pre-deluge levels. The Emperor has begun establishing new clans and colonies where old ones were long drowned, always careful to ensure the new Daimyo meets with the approval of the current Ryotan Shogun.
The Ryotan Empire supplied nearly a third of the forces at the Battle of Vergence, its forces led by the Shogun personally. While culturally insular in many ways, they recently have begun to see more trade and ambassadors, particularly from the Bright Empire and New Radiance.
In the era of the Pantheon Crusade, outside influences, particularly from the Bright Empire and the Cult of Tiamat, have begun to destabilize the insular patriarchy that has survived for several millennia, with the current shogun unwilling to pick his battles, and the current emperor sympathetic to the long-underrepresented women of the empire. Still, The Ryotan Empire remains one of the most defensible and magically powerful nations of the world.
¶ Main Islands of the Ryotan Empire
The Ryotan lands consist of a circular chain of consistently active (though not often violently so) volcanic islands. The ocean surrounding them runs relatively deep, with higher peaks on many of the islands, which protected them from the worst effects of the great tsunamis of the Deluge. While over 90% of the population drowned, this allowed their culture and capital to survive the Deluge, the only known one outside of the Mistvales.
¶ Yamako Isle
While not the largest island, Yamako is easily the highest in elevation. Tall, snow-capped mountains with several hot springs share the land with lush jungle valleys. The entire island, save for the capital and Imperial Seat, makes up Ryota Prefecture. The island holds several deepwater bays, playing host to the Ryotan Navy and its recently expanded shipwright facilities, as well as a large fishing fleet used to feed the capital. They import significant amounts of meat and grain from the larger Oku Island to the South.
¶ Honjou Isle
Another mountainous island that weathered the Deluge with its interior intact, and home to four antediluvian prefectures, including the daimyos that rule them and their clans. Some friction has happened between the surviving clans wishing to expand over the years to previously drowned territories and the Emperor wishing to reward loyalists by making new hereditary daimyos, with new titles and lands.
¶ Oku Isle
A broad, lower island to the south, and the largest of the Ryotan Isles, the Deluge wiped out Oku Isle, drowning everyone in the five prefectures it once held three hundred years ago. Primarily a lush, untamed jungle, it hosts a few colonies along the coast, new prefectures granted to old families and military loyalists, focused on farming, raising livestock, and clearing the jungles to host new populations, all in service to the capital. Further inland, the ruins of four pre-Deluge prefectures remain largely unexplored and overgrown, hidden deep within the jungles. Presently, most farmers and ranchers feel a strong sense of personal pride in being able to help feed the capital and the army, with regular competitions, honors, and prizes given out to those that produce the most or best livestock and produce.
¶ Koriki Isles
Less a single island and more a large series of lush interconnected rock pillars standing up out of the ocean ranging in height from fifty to over five hundred feet high, the largest of which near the center is over a mile wide. While the Deluge toppled a few smaller outermost ones, most survived, among them several arcane and martial schools and a powerful druidic enclave nominally allied with the Circle of Circles.
Today, most of Koriki is a broad series of hundreds of stone pillars rising a hundred feet or more from the ocean, many topped with jungles and bamboo forests, interconnected with bridges of rope, bamboo, and stone. Several remote monasteries, magic schools of the Arcanum, and others that value their privacy share residence here, overseen by the druids of Koriki. Many clans maintain small estates or sponsor facilities located here, and many noble children matriculate at least a few years at one of the many martial or arcane schools. The entire area is served by Koriki Quay, a city of hundreds of floating docks, quays, and tied-up boats, as the pillars continue deep beneath the surface of the ocean, and afford no beaches. Several rope lifts, a few magical elevators, and one long spiral stair carved around a plinth lead up from the city to the top. The druids protect the entire area from the worst weather and currents. The Port famously hosts surfing competitions, incredibly dangerous races where contestants ride the tides through the canyons between the pillars on nothing more than wooden boards.
While technically afforded prefecture status by the Empire, it has no ancestral Daimyo, the circle of druids instead being afforded one vote for the Shogun, delivered by representative.
¶ Koriki Establishments
¶ Shigenari Monastery
Sensei Takahashi Falling Water leads his school of Kensei monk sword masters of a variety of schools, and holds a set of Kamenashi Originals in safe keeping.
Magic Schools of the Arcanum
Circle Druidic Enclave
Schools of Martial Prowess
¶ The Drowned Empire of Bombahng
To the East of Ryotai lies the ruined wilderness of Bombahng. The largest island in the world, Bombahng historically clashed with the Ryotai many times over islands, trade, and general cultural differences, kept from outright war by the efforts of the Emissaries of Ahasitari. Bombahng, however, did not share the same mountainous protections from the Deluge as Ryotai, and its civilization was wiped from the surface of Quinternia. The island nation remains an overgrown wilderness ruin, and remains to be explored or settled.
¶ On Gender Roles
Traditionally patriarchal but with strong honors and powers of commerce and trade given to the women of a household, the Ryotian ruling clans have made exceptions from time to time, though never in the naming of hereditary titles, including the Daimyos and the Emperor. Magical practice has always been the easiest way for women to obtain positions of power within the Empire. Post-Deluge, the Clans find these exceptions even more crucial, with whisperings that this generation may even see its first female Daimyo.
¶ Clans
¶ Gokutawa
Long exiled after their Daimyo’s shameful infernalism almost a thousand years ago, some descendants still exist on the fringes and wish to redeem their family’s honor. Ronin, spies, and assassins, they have no prefecture of their own, but infiltrate all of them.
¶ Hideyoshi
An ancestral clan whose line survived the deluge. Bannermen to Clan Ryota and long-time loyalists to the Empire. Prefecture on Honjou Isle
¶ Ryota
The clan that saved the Empire. Almost a thousand years ago, only a few centuries after the Re-Ordinance of St. Dumon, Daimyo Takeshi, having uncovered the scourge of Infernalism in the neighboring Gokutawa clan that threatened the Empire itself, commissioned a group of clandestine ronin and ninjas to infiltrate their infernal neighbor, purge the hellish influence and bring justice to its oppressed residents. As, technically, he had to disobey the emperor and invade a neighbor to do it, Takeshi and all of his operatives, after the success of their mission, offered their lives to the emperor in ritual seppuku, even as great rewards and titles fell to their descendants for saving the empire from the Nine Hells themselves. To this day, the Daimyo of Ryota has been named Shogun for all but fifty years during which the Shogun was a Ryotan in-law. Their family bears a peerless reputation of honor, service, and sacrifice, and works very hard to preserve both itself and the empire.
- Kaneshiro, Shogun of the Empire: The most powerful single individual in Ryota, and possibly the world, outside of dragons and infernalists. Kaneshiro is a hale military and political genius in the prime of his life, as well as a devotee of Ahasitari, the Dragon of Law and Justice. He personally led the Imperial forces at the Battle of Vergence, and ruled for an additional twenty years before his death.
- Reizo, Shogun of the Empire – First son of Kaneshiro, Reizo became Daimyo of Ryota prefecture at an early age as his father became Shogun. Although he suffered a few small scandals due to youthful indiscretions, he later met his duties and his father’s expectations, guiding his prefecture in service of the Empire while heeding the family advisors left in place by his father. After the death of his father, he ascended to Shogun, albeit with some difficulty securing support from the outlying prefectures. At the time of the Pantheon Crusade, he has been Shogun for over thirty years. His critics cite that he spends too much time hunting down every cult and heretic, and not enough time managing the changing economy of the empire, while at the same time complaining of the rise in cultists in the empire.
¶ Ryuchi
A powerful clan that boasts a bloodline traced back a thousand years to a particularly virile Gold Dragon, that served as their patron long ago. Even today, the draconic ancestry breeds true in many of the clan scions, leading to a strong sorcerous tradition. In addition to their prefecture on Honjou Isle, they also maintain a magic school in the Koriki Isles.
- Akihito – Saisho of the clan, Daimyo of the Prefecture, and member of the Emperor’s Council.
- Hinoto “Wu” – Though the dragon-blooded heritage fell less on her, she became a powerful commander and trainer in the Reclamation, as well as an Eidolon of War that fought at the Battle of Vergence.
¶ Tokugawa Clan
A small clan of but a single extended family, but with outsized political influence for its size, as well as a strong Druidic tradition. Their prefecture is one of the more recent ones newly established on the ruins of Oku Isle. They also maintain a school of magic sponsored in the Koriki Isles, and one of the recent scions studied under the druids of Koriki as well.
- Daimyo Genji – Patriarch during the second eidolon war. His first children, including his heir, came from his first marriage, a political one to another clan. His remaining children came from a second marriage to an elven woman. Both women tragically died in childbirth, the latter while aboard a ship and far from medical or magical aid. Genji sits on the inner council of the Shogunate. While he wields druidic magic, his focus has long been on politics and the functioning of the Empire, rebuilt in the post-Deluge age. He expected nothing but perfection and obedience from those that served him, including his children.
- Ichiro – Eldest son, high-ranking member of the Imperial Guard
- Koharu – Married to the Daimyo of the Isoruku clan, and runs his prefecture while he is away at sea.
- Jiro – Second Son, member of the Order of Scribes and the Collegium
- Akiko – Married to a second son of the Toshimichi.
- Saburo – Half-Elven brother and Bladesinger, as well as samurai to the Shogun.
- Kazeko – Daughter and youngest of 7, worked as an agent for the Reclamation in the Scales of Vengeance, and was an Eidolon of Peace.
¶ Toshimichi
An older house, pre-deluge, that chafes at the strict rule of the Shogun, and wishes to expand their influence and lands into previously flooded lands, rather than allow them to be awarded to newly established daimyos. Prefecture on Honjou Isle.
¶ Tozawa
Less a clan and more the Imperial line of succession. Their scions have at the same time the most importance and the least amount of actual power within the empire. They are supported unquestioningly by the Shogun and Ryota clan, and offer similar support in return.
¶ Uranishi
Smaller house, and bannermen to Clan Ryuchi, with a strong in-house wizard school all children are required to attend until it is deemed they can no longer progress. Holds a small colonial prefecture on Oku.
- Uranishi Onaga - Eldest daughter of the late daimyo, who was slain in combat with threats further inland on Oku Isle. Young but unmarried, she fends off suitors left and right, even as she mourns her father and attempts to run his prefecture.
¶ Current Events
Having fended off the Dread Empire, allied with the Reclamation, and personally led the Imperial fleet at the Battle of Vergence, the Shogun’s position had never been stronger. More recently, however, a strange calamity with Quinternia’s moon caused a series of tsunamis and magic drains across the empire. Advance warning and assistance from allies meant that loss of life was almost nothing, though it left harbors all around, including Koriki Quay, the Oku Isle prefectures, and naval installations on Yamako Isle severely damaged. Some of the Shogun’s critics whispered in the shadows, wondering why, if he knew ahead of time about the lunar calamity, he didn’t do more to prevent it from hitting Ryotai at all, or why so much aid was sent to his allies on Oku Isle instead of his critics on Honju, despite the lower elevation and lesser infrastructure of the Oku prefectures.
In the era of the Pantheon Crusade, Shogun Reizo spends much of his efforts working with their overseas allies to hunt down interloping cultists, particularly the cult of Tiamat, though his critics from within the empire complain that he is not doing enough to run the day-to-day of the empire.