Sawa Ike
The Dark Matriarch Darth Shōjō
- Intent: To expand lore on Atrisia and add to a location featured in a small group of threads.
- Image Credit:
HD Walls Box: Oriental Artwork
[*]Canon: N/A
[*]Links:
- City of Jade - Past Thread
SETTING INFORMATION
- Military Base Name: Kuramagi Academy
- Classification: Academy
- Location: Atrisia
- Affiliation: Atrisian Empire (then) Atrisian Commonwealth (current)
- Population:
500 -Past - 20 - Present
[*]Accessibility: Deceptively Open area, within view of Xianlong. The Academy is located on the side of the Nhai Mountains with natural chokepoints leading up the mountain and within the caves and caverns. The Wide open spaces all sight lines to detect enemies approaching, defensive towers and thick walls designed to keep the students in. Visitors to the academy were met with Yovshin and atrisian soldiers who turned them away.
[*]Description: COnstructed by the old emperor of Atrisia as a gilded cage. THe academy was to indoctrinate and imprison willing hostages that would be used to indoctrinate and secure them. Instead of being at the palace or IMperial city of Jar'kai instead they were here. Surrounded by elite soldiers, yovshin who served the emperors will and in rebellion happened, if a family disobeyed or failed the emperor their heirs could be killed.
POINTS OF INTEREST
Aviary: Large and once built to house any number of birds on Atrisia for thr students to see and visit. IN the centuries since it was last used. fallen into disarray with everything long abandoned.
Observatory: Built to see a model of the Atrisian system and outlying systems that had been colonized. It was simple but moving and ever changing to show the years, the seasons and when astrological events could happen.
Reliquary: Something of an oddity, the ancient chamber seems to be left over and carved alcoves in a maze like repository. Legends say they were already there and no one in history has claimed the skill to make the smooth stone stylings.
Chamber of Exorcism: A remnant from a time when followers of the new gods would expel "torture" the old followers. Meant to cleanse them of the demons and wicked thoughts. The chamber was ancient even in the times of the Lotus Emperors.
Water Gardens: Built as a means to entice and entertain, the golden stone is rumored to have been imported from the ancient city of Sarnoia down the celestial river. It is filled with fruit trees, pools and fountains. Shade but also turret towers and yovshin who watched the students.
Offices: Built in buildings and rooms, the officers of the administration for the students. Over the centuries it has been left to ruin. Now it sits empty with rotted wooden desks, papers and rusted metal desks.
Classrooms: THe old classrooms made to be seen and let the students attend their classes. Stone walkways go around and connect the rooms to each other and areas like te mess halls, stands and dorms.
Dormitories: Used for student housings with private dorms and bunks for any number of students and their personal servants or guards to be there. SOldiers and yovshin assigned to in case of problems suddenly ensure their charges were "handled".
SECURITY
Maximum - Past
- Medium Sized Army
- Thick walls and archers
- Security Forces
- Fighter Support
- Riders
- Thick walls
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Built originally atop the ruins of the mysterious city. Rock carvings, runes and what could amount to records cited and dated back thousands of years but the inhabitants who were there originally left will evidence of who they were or where they had gone. The crossing of the Nhai mountains led through through the passing that would become in time the Dragons Gate. The first construct was a small fort on the hill to protect the pass, wooden walls, some barracks and in the distance the city of Xianlong or what would become it eventually.
Centuries passed and with age the wood became stone, engineering marvels and with more people, with more fighitng the danger of invsion merited the Dragons Gate and the fortress to become stronger. To become larger and a military fort was made. The inner chamber and outer walls leading the way through it all. THey continued to build up the fortress and hundreds of years later as the conquest began. Petty rulers and warlords across the regions, across the continent were being put down by a family.
It was that family that came to the gate and demanded fealty from the commander. Battle broke out and seeing the united forces of the conquered lords and ladies who had been leading elements of them. the second in command urged they that outlast them. THey had full stocks and supplies, the higher ground, defensive positons, they had little to nothing able to get around them not for miles and there was battle hardened soldiers within their ranks not in some cases green soldiers who had been pulled to fill ranks.
The commander of it Shoma Yi refused and sought honorable combat against this commander. THis Jade Empress who stood with what would one day be called the Yovshin, her own elite and personal guards to protect herself and her son. The teenage ruler. Against her he stood as the Last Warlord and the battle was deigned one on one. The fight ended after a day of battle between the two, neither giving up as both suffered wounds and the Jade Empress died two days after Shoma. In honor of his the boy Chiyu wed his daughter and made her his empress.
Thousands of years later as the Atrisian Empire was greater coming to the galactic stage it was rebuilt, the fortress improved upon and given more of a defensive position. Barracks for the soldiers and yovshin, the forests round it was cleared with walls built as it went up and up and up the mountains of Nhai with the top most towers overlooking everything across the region. Able to see it clearly from above the clouds. The levels of the fortress had battlements to allow archers to rain down arrows and blaster shots on enemies.
Still later the Fourth Emperor of Pearl fashioned it and brought it back. Planting trees, constructing dorms and rooms, offices and gardens. It wouldn't be until his grandson populated it with students, with children from his lords and ladies at court. Then soldiers and yovshin to ensure that they were protected, threats and the risks of their being disloyal in the dance betwen his sister and himself. Her wanting to return to the old ways, to the old dynasty of the Lotus Emperors and Empresses.
THe threats were to his lords and ladies, serve him or else their heirs and hopes for their houses would be lost. THe firstborne children were kept there for years... some being indoctrinated to serve the emperor even if their parents rebelled. They would be forever loyal.. even his own daughter attending at the time. After his madness cost him the support of his closest allies and childhood friends to Tagashi and Ike houses, saw the destruction of the Li-Ves clan and the fall of his own as he and his sister were both killed.
Their deaths were seen under mysterious circumstances and rumors of them fighting because they were together. Once the line of their house was gone a new lord a distant cousin claimed it. Their house was key to overthrowing and finishing it off but they were judged harshly. THe more honorable lines, Tagashi, Ike, Ichiro, Tching but more was the shame seen. Jirei the new emperor who ascended after his father died couldn't bring himself to forgive or praise them. Honorable fighters didn't kill women or children.. they just didn't punish them.
Jurei died within the year at Kuramagi after closing it, some fo the students who had fled deeper into the mountain emerged and thought him there to ensure they were killed. Tching ascended to the throne of Atrisia and ruled for thousands of years from their seat at Jar'kai but still the fortress and academy remained sealed. A haunted place, a dark place where most feared to tread. Rumors and legends came up about students wandering the pathways, kimono wearing teachers who lure them in and exact vengeance upon them.
The emperors who followed, the houses that followed left Kuramagi in ruin.. barely thinking about it and as the ruins continued to age they avoided most of the major events. THe plague didn't infect the legends of ghosts, the netherworld couldn't claim the dead and the darkness was passed over like the blink of an eye... it might not have been great. it was barely touched until a few sith and jedi battled on Atrisia tearing areas of it asunder... destroying Jar'Kai and turnign Xianlong into the new capital.
With the new capital the Cherry Blossom Emperor named [member="Shoma Ike"] as his heir and a restoration and recovery effort across the planet was started. To restore the world and try to heal it as Kuramagi was given to a team who started to investigate the legends around it and document what they could find for fact and fiction. With that though they still have not done much in the way of returning fortifications or giving it soldiers but clearing some of the overgrown branches and fruit trees that is important.
