OOC Chat

[Nanzi]

The Imperial Cult of Nanzi was too cool for the history books.

But we had hookers and rokugani blackjack.

[Hanzou]

Would the Sun and Moon count as fortunes as well? Also, there are fortunes of other cultures that exist but aren't part of the Rokugani culture, like the Shi-Tien Yen-Wang. And what of Suitengu or the fortunes of the Winds?

Kame-no-Kaze is one of the three unnamed fortunes that predated the Empire. Suitengu, however was a fisherman elevated by an Emperor.

There are definitely other gods, especially the Sun and Moon. But, the minor fortunes, generally don't exist yet, at least by standard canon. The tribes may have there own or may see the Seven Fortunes differently.

[Taochusu]

Well, yeah, Kaze-no-kami is one of the unnamed, but there are also the four fortunes of the directional winds which aren't part of Kaze-no-kami.

[Hanzou]

You're right.

Jikoju - Fortune of the East Wind
Komoku - Fortune of the West Wind
Tamon - Fortune of the North Wind
Zocho - Fortune of the South Wind

It might be good to do thread with Fortunes for this era. I think I'll do that.

[Ko]

Kame-no-Kaze is one of the three unnamed fortunes that predated the Empire. Suitengu, however was a fisherman elevated by an Emperor.

Suitengu seems to be one of several Fortunes about whom stories conflict. The wiki lists at least two versions (he was a fisherman elevated by a Hantei/he's always been around since ancient times). The easiest in-universe reconciliation is that the fisherman was an aspect or incarnation of a Fortune who already existed, and gained Imperial recognition thereby--it's kind of hard to imagine people before then weren't worshiping some kind of sea god, just as it's hard to imagine farmers didn't recognize a harvest/grain-related god, etc.

You could play the same game with Inari or anybody else--divinities that are already venerated here and there throughout the land, but not universally recognized or named the same thing everywhere, until they or their local devotees make them known to the Emperor and they get officially added to the pantheon.

Edit: especially since many of the minor fortunes don't even have 'human' origin stories or dates in canon, they're beings that are just kind of... around.

[Togashi Saruko]

A Fortune of Grain seems likely to have been worshipped, but I would guess by various names for the grain grown (barley-kami, wheat-kami, oat-kami, etc).

Rice is still very rare in the nascent Empire (it's noted that only the Isawa know how to grow it, which is understandable since rice isn't that easy to grow compared to some grains), so a Fortune of Rice doesn't seem likely to be a thing yet. Which could explain why a dude was later declared Fortune of Rice and Grain.

[Taochusu]

There is Kuroshin, fortune of Agriculture, Kenro-ji-jin, fortune of Soil and Toyouke-omikama, fortune of Grain. Though to be fair, in Rokugan agriculture didn't exist for very much longer than rice farming before the kami fell. None of those three seems to have a mortal elevation story as far as I can tell.

For all we know, it could function in such a way that the fortunes exist for the things people are elevated to beforehand, but their existences get displaced or bound to the raised mortal because they exemplify the ideal.

[Hanzou]

There's also a Fortune of Ronin.

I think it's likely that there have always been gods for various things. In some cases it may have been different aspects of one god or another. Maybe Ekibyogami is actually the darker aspect of Jurojin. Once the formal religion of the Empire was established, however, it was up to the Throne to recognize the various old gods or elevate honored mortals as Minor Fortunes. That led to the conflicting stories, redundant duties and random recognitions.

With Suitengu, I wonder if Isora was with a previous sea god, destroyed by the Lying Darkness, and the fisherman later replaced him.

[Ko]

There's also a Fortune of Ronin.

I think it's likely that there have always been gods for various things. In some cases it may have been different aspects of one god or another. Maybe Ekibyogami is actually the darker aspect of Jurojin. Once the formal religion of the Empire was established, however, it was up to the Throne to recognize the various old gods or elevate honored mortals as Minor Fortunes. That led to the conflicting stories, redundant duties and random recognitions.

With Suitengu, I wonder if Isora was with a previous sea god, destroyed by the Lying Darkness, and the fisherman later replaced him.

I wondered if the story about Isora's ex was a gesture at the in-between-ness of a shore goddess, myself. And of course the tidal shoreline has a complicated relationship with the Moon... hmm.

For all we know, it could function in such a way that the fortunes exist for the things people are elevated to beforehand, but their existences get displaced or bound to the raised mortal because they exemplify the ideal.

Folk Buddhism is full of stories of heroic or kind mortals who turn out to have been incarnations of various bodhisattvas or other benign beings. Princess Miaoshan being really another life-cycle of Guanyin, that one chubby monk who was supposed to have been an incarnation of Maitreya, etc. Miaoshan is Miaoshan, but she's also Guanyin (who doesn't stop existing while Miaoshan is incarnate, because time is weird when you're a deity). So maybe that human dude was always already Inari, or Kisada was always already an incarnation of pure persistence, etc. etc.

[Togashi Saruko]

That is actually a really interesting way to look at it!

*looks closer at cousin Inari, to see if he's truly a Fortune at heart*

[Hanzou]

That's probably the way of it. Rokugan has an aspect of animism to it. Everything has a spirit of varying power and importance, that may be honored and worshiped by mortals whether they are given a name or not. Such spirits may take other forms and live other lives. Some mortals may find their names tied to such a spirit by destiny, allowing both to become something more together.

[Ch’chit T’kkiri]

Pre-modern animistic beliefs without any potential for codification are never the most consistent of things... Amaterasu was a plague bringing man who lived in the mountains and ate children before she was the Sun Goddess in Japan...

Shinto kami were the 'dimmed' essence of Buddhist Bodhisattvas even after you get a bit more religious organization... and then you have the Shinto folks saying that Bodhisattvas were just the kami who revealed their lesser selves to the rest of the world a bit later.

People are scared of stuff... mostly natural disasters and plagues... and so they try and do stuff that makes them less scared about that stuff... like give food to a mountain so its streams wont flood next spring. What they call it and why they do what they do varies from village to village in an early civilization era motif like this.

[Taochusu]

Though there is the aspect of this setting where those gods might actually visit a mortal and do real magic stuff. Which can color things more fantastically in an RPG setting.

[Ch’chit T’kkiri]

These deities don't always have to show up in the same skin though. Or describe exactly what they are or why they do things... Just what they want.

Deities work in mysterious ways.... *mystical hand-waving*

[Hantei Kinsen]

I'm making Inari a Fortune by pure force of posting. Doesn't matter if it is deserved.

=P

[Ch’chit T’kkiri]

Hantei's be making undeserving folks Fortunes in every timeline.

[Taochusu]

I will make Taochusu the Fortune of Sloppy Eating.

[Jin]

Hantei's be making undeserving folks Fortunes in every timeline.

It was the one thing the Steel Chrysanthemum did right: Creating Fortunes due to petty, petty vengeances.

[Hanzou]

My character will be the Fortune of Showing Up Late.

[Ko]

The worldbuilding challenge in this sort of setting is figuring out how to merge that early-history feel of an amorphous, animistic, not-yet-systematized belief system... with the cosmological fact that gods and Fortunes are real in Rokugan, full stop (and not just in the Pratchett style, where they're real as long as people believe in them). Too much fun there to just handwave all of it.