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#Post#: 15--------------------------------------------------
The Village of Seitou Tason
By: Beebs Date: August 27, 2018, 8:33 pm
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Seitou Tason Overveiw:
A nameless, narrow dirt road is the only entrance to
Seitou Tason. To the right of this road is a grove of trees,
while the left slopes downward to a lazy stream. The
road itself is only wide enough for two men or one horse
to proceed at a time. A simple wooden bridge crosses a
stream into the village itself.
The center of the village is a large open area that can’t
quite be called a town square, although that is clearly
what is aspires to be. The villagers of Seitou Tason gather
here during festivals, special meetings, and emergencies.
The village well is located in one corner of the square,
and in peaceful times is a popular place for local peasant
women to gather and gossip while collecting water for
their homes. To the right of the square is a crude, poorly
built bell-tower. The bell itself is cracked, worn, and dirty.
It has clearly been in use for many years – perhaps ever
since the village was first established. It is nothing more
than an oversized ladder with a narrow platform at the
top, topped by a small bell which can be used to announce
the end of the work-day, gather everyone for important
meetings, celebrate holidays, or warn of bandits.
The assorted peasant huts that surround the town’s
central area are each unique in shape and design, the
result of many generations of careful repairs in the face of
weather and wear.
Due to Seitou Tason’s remote location and its
insignificance to the samurai population of Rokugan,
the village residents rarely see samurai of any kind.
Consequently, they have a hard time telling the difference
between samurai with legitimate business and the bandits
that rove the area. Villagers will typically greet visiting
samurai with extreme deference and fear.
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Location Guide and Denizens
The Mill and Granary
The mill is a large and very old wooden building on
the edge of town. It has a heavy waterwheel that turns
slowly in the sluggish current of the stream. The slow
but steady thump-thump of the mill’s giant mortar-andpestle
is a constant background noise to the entire village.
The granary, just next door, is an equally large wooden
building with a heavy thatched roof. This is where the
peasants keep their supplies of rice, barley, millet, and
buckwheat.
These buildings are the domain of Hippu, the “old man
of the mill.” He sleeps on a tattered futon in one corner
of the mill’s main room. Hippu is easily the oldest person
in the village, a bitter shell of a man who spends all his
time in his precious mill, puttering around trying to keep
it in repair. His teeth and hair are all gone but his vision
still works, and he does not hesitate to share his opinions
with others – even samurai. Hippu is much too old to fear
death, and he has a rather dim view of the samurai caste.
He feels the samurai of Rokugan have forgotten their duty
to the heimin in their endless wars against each other,
wars in which the peasants are the true casualties. “If a
samurai dies in battle, everyone says he fulfilled his role
in the Celestial Order. People sing his praises and laud his
courage. If a peasant dies because the samurai did not
protect him, no one notices, no one sings. Only his wife
and children lament his passing.”
The Tea House
This nameless one-room business offers tea and shochu,
as well as simple meals (soup, rice porridge, etc). During
the evenings, many of the peasants will gather here to
gossip about village affairs. The tea house is owned and
operated by an old woman named Moriko who lives in a
room attached to the back of the building.
Moriko is a kindly old woman, and the only one in town
who even vaguely remembers Hippu when he had hair and
teeth. She is known to give treats to the children of the
village when their parents aren’t looking, urging them to
silence with a wink and a smile. She has a wicked sense of
humor, and uses her old age to get away with mischief that
wouldn’t normally be tolerated from an adult.
The Herbalist Hut
The hut of Chiziru is often surrounded by a flowery
or medicinal odor. It is probably the best-kept hut in the
village, with new walls and a recently patched thatch
roof, since every villager recognizes the importance of
Chiziru and what she does. Inside, the odor increases in
potency, for the main room is filled with pots of herbs,
folk remedies, and medicines for all manner of ailments.
Chiziru the herbalist is the village’s other elder citizen,
a wizened crone whose age is somewhere past fifty. The
locals refer to her as “obaa-sama” (honored grandmother)
and provide her with food, clothing, and other needs
in return for her irreplaceable services. She is a sharptongued
woman who does not hesitate to scold those she
thinks deserve it, but unlike Hippu she is very polite and
deferential toward samurai. Chiziru uses traditional herbal
remedies and folk treatments passed down through her
family for generations. She is semi-literate, and has some
very limited skills with the spirits – nothing resembling
a true shugenja’s talents, but enough to cast a few minor
blessings from memorized chants. Her family’s lineage
includes a ronin several generations ago who claimed to
be a former Kitsu shugenja. Chiziru is assisted around the shop
by her apprentice,
Aoiko, a peasant girl who is just blossoming into full
womanhood. Most of the young men of the village have a
habit of lingering around the hut and offering to do odd
jobs for Aoiko in their spare time. She is quick of mind and
easily picks up everything Chiziru
teaches her, including what little
reading and writing the old woman
knows. She has also begun picking
up her teacher’s sharp tongue, and
usually wins any verbal sparring
with the village men.
Silk Works
Just outside the village is a modest
silk farm, producing just enough
cloth to provide for the locals. Until
this year, the silk works was run
by a married couple, Yusuke and
Kaname, along with their parents and
children. However, Yusuke was killed
during a recent bandit raid while
trying to protect his wife. Now, those
Yusuke left behind are struggling to
keep the place running by themselves.
Kaname finds it very difficult to raise
their three children, take care of their
surviving parents, and run the silk works
all by herself. The entire family lives in a
one-room hut behind the main building.
Carpenter/Blacksmith’s Shop
The most prominent shop in the village is a large opensided
structure with a sizable hut attached. The ground
near the shop is littered with spare scraps of wood and
metal. The inside isn’t in much better condition, choked
with pieces of furniture and tools in various states of
repair. The craftsman Eizou and his assistant “Ox” can
usually be found here, except when they are out making
repairs elsewhere in the village.
Eizou is a large, muscular, and rather unattractive man
in his early thirties. He is aggressive and sarcastic to his
fellow villagers, but knows to hold his tongue in the
presence of samurai. He is also man who loves to flirt with
the young women of the village, especially the pretty ones.
Sadly, his efforts in this field have so far come to naught,
despite his putative good status as the local craftsman;
nevertheless, he continues to hold out hope that someday
one of those women will return his favor. Despite his
outward rudeness, Eizou is actually a gentle and lonely
soul, and abhors violence of any kind. He sees samurai
as the sources of most violence in the world, and so will
serve any samurai who come to visit the village quickly
and efficiently in order to hopefully get rid of them as
quickly as possible.
“Ox” is both Eizou’s assistant and his foster-son – his
real parents died in a bandit raid when he was a small boy.
Although his real name is Oushi, most everyone in the
village calls him by his nickname, given to him because
of his huge build. Ox is over six feet tall and his shoulders
seem as broad as two normal men. Ox has amazing
stamina and never seems to tire at his work. In addition
to helping Eizou, he also cuts firewood from the nearby
forest, and helps with construction and other heavy labor
in the village as necessary. Although his speech is as
plodding as the animal whose name he bears, Ox is not
actually stupid, and those who try to take advantage of
him usually come to regret it.
Almost everyone in the village likes Ox and treats him
as family, and he is highly protective of them, especially
the village children, who he thinks of as younger brothers
and sisters. Although he has been taught to be a peaceful
man by his foster-father, Ox’s ire can be roused if anything
or anyone threatens the people of the village.
Oxen Pen
The pen is made of heavy wooden fencing and is
attached to a roofed-over three-walled barn that provides
shelter from the wind. There are anywhere from five to
eight oxen in the pen at any given time, depending on
whether Seitou Tason has been visited recently by bandits.
The oxen are communal property, used for spring plowing
and planting, hauling lumber, and other heavy labor as
necessary. The peasants of Seitou Tason never slaughter
the oxen for food, since they are far too valuable as labor.
In fact, the oxen are easily considered the most valuable
thing in the village by its residents, so any loss is a heavy
blow.
The oxen, along with the other village animals, are
tended by a pair of twelve year old boys. The
boys, Kyumo and Ryumo, were born twins,
as auspicious event. Consequently, their
parents have been somewhat indulgent
in raising them, and they often sneak off
from their duties to play and explore in the
nearby woods, as well as simply running
about and getting into trouble with
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