God-Kings of Lotus
Introduction
In the farthest reaches of the East, there is a city...
Ivory Eyes and Zephyr
You’re not sure whether it was simple happenstance or bad luck that led you to the city of Lotus’s dim excuse for an Immaculate temple. The shrine is smaller than even the squalid row houses that line the streets of the slums, and its “courtyard” is little more than a patch of undeveloped earth between its poorly-worked granite steps and the cobblestone road passing by it. The torii proclaiming the entryway of the temple looks rotted, and the once-red paint that clings to it can barely maintain that grip. Since having stopped here, you’ve seen not the first monk or shrine attendant, let alone an Immaculate priest–although of course, Lotus has no Dragonblooded.
However, standing in the center of the bare-soiled courtyard is a god, not a sight seen in most temples. He stands tall as a man, with skin white as rice paper clad in flowing green robes, with coiling spiral patterns embossed on them as if by black soy sauce. Before him, there is a wooden table arrayed with food–heaping bowls of rice of every color, urns of sauces, iceboxes full of various fish, cutting boards strewn with sliced vegetables, and more. A few locals sit on the ground at the courtyard’s edge, their mouths watering as they consider the god’s kitchen.
Upon seeing his new arrivals–though they come separately–the god bellows out a boast succulent with hubris. “O poor, disfigured folk of Lotus! Come unto me and pray, and I shall show you the benevolence of my feast! I am O-Mochi, Terrestrial Minister of Wild Rice, and the greatest chef in the East! Come, I shall prepare for you all a sumptuous smorgasbord of rice, if you will but pray to me, as is the Immaculate ordinance for the day. But, if any of you would challenge my right as divinity, my unconquerable prowess as a chef, then let them come forward to my table, and we shall see whose cuisine shall reign supreme!
Rising Echo
There is little in Creation that can possibly be worse than dealing with bureaucrats. The Most Glorious Resplendent Secretary in Robes of Saffron, as he styles himself, has been bickering with you for the past ten minutes, citing precedents and regulations that you could swear he made up on the spot. “I can’t deliver a letter to the mayor,” he says, his shifty eyes betraying a hint of a grin, “The mayor consults with no one, except by appointment. And he makes appointments with no one, except by through me. And today is a city-wide bureaucratic day of rest, and while my extreme diligence finds me at the office, I would violate the regulations of my profession to even touch the letter.”
Considering the argument finished, the secretary rises and picks up a length of bamboo, as if to drive you by force from his office. But the bamboo quivers in his hand–there is something to you that makes this bureaucrat almost afraid. He pauses, reconsidering, and drops the rod. Confounded by little more than your charisma, he demurs. “Perhaps...perhaps you should come by my office at twilight. I have much to do today, forms to sign and wheels to speed, but perhaps..”
The squealing incompetent still refuses to take your letter now–the bastard! Yet, as incompetent as he is, he at least recognizes you as one not to be dealt with lightly. So far, you have been very, very polite, not even forcing the issue...but now your patience wears thin, and you begin to wax wroth. This sow of a man would be incompetent as a young Dynast’s babysitter, and here he is, telling you that he simply cannot take your letter. Something must be done.
Invincible Maiden Yomiko and Watcher
While you thought you could find something nice for yourself down in the markets of Lotus, your search has been wholly fruitless. The skimpy open-air market of Lotus, lined with merchant booths and pavilions, lacks anything of much worth, and the prices defy all reason. Could it be that burlap sacks of dried rice, lots of poorly-dyed wool, and crudely whittled wooden figurines command prices of dozens of koku? Preposterous, the whole market is preposterous.
If there were some Guild haven, some wondrous warehouse, you might find something worth your jade, but there is not. The buildings that surround the market are squat and sloped, either the barely-crumbling houses of the moderately wealthy or minor bureaucratic offices. The mayor’s governance seems like a weed growing within the city, a preponderance of official residences and would-be stately ministries that spread out from the mayoral palace at the heart of Lotus, choking out all other buildings. Most people live in the row houses on the very edge of the city, close to the outlying fields they cultivate. The ones who reside in actual houses, pathetic as they may be, are the rich ones here, owners of the land that the poor cultivate. It is sad to think that Lotus’s wealthiest landowners keep homes that a pauper in the Realm would balk at if offered it.
Angrily departing the market, you find your route blocked by a directionless crowd, a herd of men and women wearing uniformly rough, woolen garb. They seem as if they are trying to be a mob, but the milling about and general sense of confusion seems to ruin the effect. Now and then, one of them will shout out some protest or slogan–”Bread for the farmers!” “Our land, our crop!”–but they are quickly hushed by their meeker comrades. It is a riot without violence, a protest march without much protest. Pathetic, really. Completely directionless, completely purposeless. And in your way.