The Spirits of Yamato

Yamato is the land of the kami, but even so, spirits, ghosts and supernatural creatures. Some are good, some are wicked, some are benign, but all of them are part of the complex metaphysical structure of Yamato.

The world where Yamato exists has three separate levels–the Heavenly or Lofty Realm, that exists among the sea of stars, where the mightiest of the kami, the Heavenly Kami, originated from and live. It is a paradise world, where few lesser kami are allowed to enter.

Then there is the Middle Country, or the Central Land of Reed Plains. This is the land of Yamato itself, where humans now live, but once populated by countless Earthly Kami and other lesser spirits. The Middle Country is actually split into two realms–the Physical Realm, where humans exist and originate, and the Spirit Realm.

In ancient times, the two realms were closer to together, often times, they were one, but as time progress, for some reason they have drifted apart. Where once endless spirits and supernatural beings could freely cross between the realms, now only the strongest spirits and creatures can still enter the Physical Realm as they please. Others must wait until the night, or the full moon, or times of the year when the worlds draw near and the veil weakens.

Finally, there is the land of Yomi, deep beneath the earth, where all manner of wickedness exudes from. It is the realm of the dead–but not of dead humans. For humans are but kami trapped in mortal form, and upon their death, their souls become kami. However, when a kami dies, they end up in the land of Yomi, never to escape…

This is, of course, according to the Old Ways. According to Kensho, the Way of Enlightenment, humans who strive to become the highest of Heavenly Kami by achieving Enlightenment do not simply shrug off their mortal flesh upon death, and ascend. They must earn it through actions in this life. Only strict adherence to the tenants and precepts will allow one to ascend. All others are sent back into the cycle of rebirth, and reborn in a new station in life in accordance with their actions in the past life.

The good are rewarded, and advanced towards their goal. Some sins may be punished during the rebirth cycle; here time has no meaning, and a day in the afterlife feel as if 8,000 of our mortal years have passed. However, the wicked are demoted in their struggle for enlightment, and the truly wicked and grievously sinful are punished greatly for their crimes.

Among some believers, it is said (though not confirmed) that the worst offenders are not even reborn in the Physical Realm, as an animal, or plant, or even as in the lowest castes of society. They may find themselves reborn as yokai. Some of these supernatural creatures are benign, as mentioned previously, but many can be just as evil and wicked as the creatures birthed from the deepest pits of Yomi.

Some serve miserable existences, such as the Akaname, the scum-licker, that licks the filth and scum from wash basins and latrines. Others, merely inconvenience humans, such as the Nurikabe, which blocks the paths of humans traversing the roads of Yamato.

Most mainstream orthodoxy admonishes these belief. No human, no matter how twisted, could ever be corrupted into a kami. They can, however, be reborn as vengeful or tortured spirits. Instead of being subjected to endless physical torture in the Hell of Rebirth, they are instead subject to traversing the Physical World, witnessing the happy lives of others while they themselves must suffer–unseen, and unheard by the living.

One example are the ghosts of those who have been particularly greedy or avaricious in life. Those who have imbibed too much of drink. Who have fattened themselves needlessly on food, callously ignoring the poor and hungry around them. Those who lived in excess. In death, they are reborn as hungry ghosts, such as the Gaki, or Jikininki, who must travel the world, insatiably hungry, never able to slake their thirst, or sate their appetite. They devour humans, corpses, waste, filth, and feces in endless torrents, but nothing can ever fill their hunger.

Even in the beliefs of Kodo, and among the common folk, belief is strong that those who die with powerful feelings attached to their demise may themselves choose to cling to the Physical Realm, rather than pass on, to exact revenge on those who wronged them. All kinds of jealous ghosts, vengeful spirits, and other such entities exist in legend and history alike.

Yamato’s obsession with ghost tales is famed. It is a common practice among the living, on warm summer nights, to sit in dark rooms, and light several candles. Each person in the room takes a turn at telling a ghost story, and finishes by blowing out the candle, until finally, the room is pitch dark.

Some ghost stories are so well known that there is nary a person across the land, from the far flung reaches of Iga, to the icy peaks of Ezochiyama, who do not know the story by heart. Often, these stories can vary by region, each place putting their own spin on the tale, but the core elements remain the same.

It is no wonder, really, that Yamato is so obsessed with the Spirit Realm and their denizens. Of ghosts and wicked spirits. Or of the Yokai and Oni that fill their tales, for once they plagued the waking world as well.

When Izanagi returned from the Land of Yomi, having failed, by his own weakness, to bring his wife back from the land of the dead, he sealed the entrance way to the blighted land, and his now transformed and demonic wife with it. When he looked upon his wife, despite being told not to, he saw what she had become. She had been transformed by the underworld, and Izanagi fled while she and her wicked spawn chased him from Yomi.

Angered, corrupted by the blighted land, and no longer in her right mind, Izanami vowed to take the lives of as many humans as she could each day. Izanagi so vowed to her to protect humanity, and ensure the birth of more humans that she could kill, each day.

So was made the Primal Vow, and so Izanagi became it’s first keeper. The first of the five greatest to ever take the other.

Over time, other kami would take up the vow, but the four remaining of the five most famous were Amaterasu, the highest of them all. Susano’o, who slayed the serpent Yamata-no-Orochi and so came to rule the Middle Country for a time. Inari, the most popular of the Earthly Kami, whose shrines and devotees outnumber even those of Amaterasu. And finally, Takemikazuchi, father of sumo, who subdues the giant catfish that causes the earthquakes known to rock Yamato often.

The vow they took was a serious vow, for Yomi continued to birth vile armies of evil Yokai and Oni, hell-bent on the destruction of Yamato and the purging of it’s human population. These hordes were known as Night Parades, from the Night Parade of 100 Demons, the original size of the first human hunting party, but also the idiom for total pandemonium, for that’s what these creatures would unleash upon the land.

Even after the kami ceased walking among their mortal children, the kami would find ways, through their descendants, to incarnate within the strongest of their bloodline. These five heroes, known as the Kamigakari, were as living kami. They could, through sacred ritual, take on the incarnated forms of the kami from whom they were descended, and fight off the constant hordes of wicked creatures.

As time went on, the hordes grew and grew, as humanity’s own armies did…until one day, about six centuries prior to the current time, they simply stopped. The Last Great Horde was defeated, pushed from the shores of Yamato or killed, and no more incursions came.

Some saw this as the fulfillment of the Primal Vow, but vigil was still kept, as the Vow demanded. Kamigakari found, honoured, and trained. Armies and defenses maintained. Coastal fortresses were manned. Divination was done to determine the likelihood of the return of the next horde…but nothing came.

There has not been a recognized Kamigakari in nearly three centuries, though their importance had waned long before that. By their end, they had merely become ceremonial. Tools for propaganda and tradition, often used to bolster the image and legitimacy of the Emperor and the Imperial court after Izumo had broken off from the Empire and defeated their armies at Aokigahara, creating a schism that shattered the Empire into several smaller polities.

Many in Yamato believe the Primal Vow fulfilled, the hordes defeated, and the Physical Realm now too far from the Spirit Realm for the hordes to truly affect Yamato in force ever again. While the Hongan Order maintains it’s forces of warrior monks, in the small chance a horde should ever return, they no longer train to fight yokai, but instead other humans. The Hongan Order of warrior monks are no better than mercenaries nowadays, selling their services to both the Empire and the Shogunate in exchange for coin.

They hold no real political conviction–or at least, that’s not why they fight. In times of war, coin is their master, and koku their conscience. In times of rare peace (or at least between wars) they cloak themselves in prestige earned from single combat between themselves and others. They travel the land, fighting other warriors for renown, no better than the ronin they fight.

Indeed, it has been said by some that without the hordes to fight, humans sought new enemies in each other, and civil war and chaos descended on Yamato once more, and it has not ceased in four and a half centuries.