Ronin & Kami

The element of Metal encompasses not only the substance itself, but the fact that metallurgy and blacksmithing is needed to refine metal from simple ores. Metal is also the element of cogs and gears and represents advancement and technology. The Kami often take shapes of finished products of the smiths' art rather than amorphous masses of the element because of this, even when appearing to a Monk of Ro-Kan, the Kami will be a finished katana or system of gears.

After the great tsunami, many of Ro-Kan’s peasants had to turn from rice farming to other means of providing food. Most followed the Temple's proscription on eating meat but a few, mostly those living nearer to large cities, turned to hunting. Ichiro is old enough to remember the old rulers of the Jwar Isles and comes to fight when they call.

An eclectic retinue of warriors plucked from the mainland by Shiho Hiroto while on his travels around the Empire. Among the group is a wild horseman of the steppes fighting alongside a strongman wielding a fiery log as his weapon of choice. Then we have a ritually scarred Michi monk trapped in endless suffering supported by two mysterious swordsmen who are identical in both manner and style. Finally, a venerable Shiho banner bearer who has spent countless years alone in the swamps thinking that the Dragon Wars still raged on around him.