Kami and Fortunes
A Fortune is a type of powerful kami that governs a concept rather than a place or natural feature: strength, cats, crafts, and the like. The appellation “Fortune” is a contraction of their full, proper title, which may be translated “God of Fortune” or “Lucky God.” Fortunes, like other kami, have watched over Kiga and its people since the beginning of time.
Shinseism’s introduction has changed the way many people conceptualize the Fortunes, though. As per official Imperial edict, the Tao of Shinsei and the goal of Enlightenment are supreme laws over both kami and humanoids.
Fortunes remain important, but as paragons of Shinseist wisdom and practice. Nevertheless, the festivals, rituals, and other traditional practices that propitiate and honor them have changed relatively little over the course of thousands of years. Further, the Emerald Empire is a vast
land, and edicts around Shinseism are more recognized in some regions than others. Fortunism, ancestor worship, and even more ancient or esoteric traditions are still the primary religions of many people in Kiga.
Fortunes divide their time between the Celestial Heavens and Ningen-dō. From their offices and mansions in Tengoku, they oversee Kiga as a whole.
They descend to Ningen-dō via places sacred to them—shrines, or regions that express their purview, for example—when the time comes to get more personally involved in terrestrial affairs. Like other kami, Fortunes often make their earthly homes in natural, geographical, or humanoid-built features called shintai, which are the focus of many shrines.
Folk tradition maintains that Fortunes can take humanoid form as one of these shintai. The mythical prehistories of many Fortunes describe their lives as humanoids, either in Kiga or some other land of Arenia.
Some act or expression of supreme excellence allowed these humanoids to ascend to become Fortunes, a blessing humanoids today may still receive through legendary effort or virtue. Currently, few Kigani think much of these stories. The odds of running into a Fortune in humanoid disguise are low indeed.
The Seven Great Fortunes
These are the most widely propitiated Fortunes in all of Kiga.Benten
Benten is the Fortune of Arts and Romantic Love, who appears as an elegant woman with dark-brown skin and wet, black hair. Her mount is the five-headed dragon, her symbol the biwa, and her sacred place the river. Benten is particularly popular with young samurai before gempuku, who are in the thick of their education and overwhelmed with poetry to memorize and calligraphy to practice—and who are also aflutter with romantic feelings for other youths. Playwrights, actors, puppeteers, and other entertainers venerate Benten as their patron.Bishamon
Bishamon, the Fortune of Strength, appears in archaic armor, carrying a massive halberd in one hand and a Shinseist temple packed with sutras in the other. While cynics sometimes debate how much Shinsei really means to the Fortunes and their dedicated servants, Bishamon is known for his honest and assiduous study of the doctrine of Shinseism. Although when common folk run into him, he is frequently dressed as an armored warrior, he also has been said to appear as a wandering Shinseist priest toting a backpack full of heavy scrolls and tomes. He is always depicted with a broad smile, representing the joy and satisfaction that come from a balance of physical fitness and contemplative wisdom.Daikoku
Daikoku, the Fortune of Wealth, embodies contradiction. He is cheerful and jolly, with plump lucky earlobes, but his skin is smeared with the ash of the grave. His great wooden mallet showers gold coins with every strike, but his association with death and cemeteries reminds people that their wealth will not follow them into Meido. He sits atop several fat bales of rice to represent riches and plenty, but a mischief of ravenous rats gnaws at those bales eternally to remind us that wealth means nothing if not invested and defended. Merchants and farmers are his most devoted followers. Fortunist monks devoted to Daikoku frequently remind well-born samurai not to take their wealth for granted: while money cannot buy happiness, the lack of adequate money, food, or shelter can certainly place one in debt to sorrow.Ebisu
Ebisu, the Fortune of Honest Work, is a good friend of Daikoku, though far more mercurial. He teaches us that luck comes to the diligent most of all. He is a wandering fisherman by trade, representing the oldest job in all of Kiga, which sustained humanoids before they learned to plant and harvest grain. He wears archaic clothes and carries a fishing rod and a big fish he has recently caught. Fisherfolk who find a stone among the fish in their nets venerate it with offerings of food and drink, since legend has it that such a stone is Ebisu in disguise. Ebisu is the only major Fortune who does not have shintai in his shrines; there are icons of him, but he does not live therein, preferring to reside in the sea and take the form of a whale. While Ebisu has shugenja, he does not speak to them in his voice, and he is hard of hearing, so he is not beseeched with prayers spoken aloud, but with clapping and the ringing of bells. Ebisu’s monks, while they pay lip service to Shinseism, are the furthest from orthodox Shinseists in their practices and traditions.Fukurokujin
Fukurokujin is the Fortune of Wisdom. Popular legend—not to be confused with certain beliefs and practices in the Phoenix Clan—indicates that he was once a mortal who mastered the Way, learning to subsist on the breath of the universe instead of food and drink, and eventually ascending to his divine post. Martial artists often venerate him as representative of the wisdom they seek through combative practice. He is an elderly bearded man, stout and diminutive but with a high cone-shaped forehead, leaning on a long staff with a book of lore. He is always accompanied by a turtle, a crane, a black deer, or some combination of these. His holy symbol is the needle, and his most devoted worshippers are tailors. It is said that Fukurokujin knows how to revive the dead but never uses or shares this knowledge for fear it would be misused.Hotei
Hotei, the Fortune of Contentment, resembles Daikoku in that he is a jolly, rotund man with big earlobes, but he lacks Daikoku’s coating of graveyard ash. His holy symbol is a sack—known as a hōtei—full of toys and gifts that he hands out to deserving children. He is, unsurprisingly, one of the most popular and well-loved Fortunes. He is also the only Fortune believed to have met Shinsei in person. Legend has it that before anyone knew who Shinsei was, an eccentric old monk arrived at the Imperial Palace, walked right into the throne room, sat down in a corner, and started meditating silently. The Emperor waved off the hesitant guards who went to apprehend him, and he personally brought him vegetables and tea every day but otherwise ignored him. When Shinsei finally arrived, the monk stood and walked to greet Shinsei, and the two smiled and bowed to one another as if they were old friends. They had a brief private conversation. The monk sat quietly and listened with a beautific expression on his face as Shinsei expounded the Way, and then he exited with Shinsei and Shiba. As the three parted ways in front of the castle, the old monk noticed a little boy playing nearby. From the bag he carried, he pulled a kemari ball too large to have fit inside. He kicked it toward the boy, who caught it, thanked him, and ran away. It was at this point that onlookers realized it was Hotei in a human guise. When they asked Shinsei if the Little Teacher knew him, he replied: “I do not, but something about him seemed familiar. I have a feeling I will see him again.” Hotei’s was the very first order of Fortunist monks to be founded, well before the Emperor fused the religions of Fortunism and Shinseism.Jurōjin
Jurōjin, the Fortune of Longevity, is a thin old man, as old as the stars, who lives in a certain constellation that looks like him in the southern sky. Like Fukurokujin, he is an old man leaning on a staff accompanied by a deer, turtle, or crane, but he is very thin where Fukurokujin is stout. Jurōjin is known to be a patron of the visual arts; all of the Fortunist monks sworn to him are diligent painters and sculptors, producing fine paintings, screens, and sculptures large and small whose sale to wealthy patrons sustains their monasteries comfortably.Other Popular Fortunes
Though they do not garnish the same level of worship as the great fortunes, there are numerous other fortunes respected by Kigani inhabitants.Ekron
It is said that Ekron was the first humanoid ever to die. Alone, he journeyed from the land of the living down to the underworld of Yomi (for Yomi, not Jigoku, was the underworld at that point in history). He became the Fortune of Death and Judge of the Dead, ruling fairly and justly. Some stories say that Ekron built the facilities of the underworld himself; others say that he found the underworld already outfitted with buildings, dwellings, and palaces, even though he was the first one ever to arrive—how curious! After Yomi and the sorei ascended to Heaven, Ekron entrusted his charges to the gods of the sky and returned to reconquer Meido and Gaki-dō, reasoning that if someone didn’t stick around to administer the underworld, Fu Leng would win. He seems to have been right, but everyone who looks upon Ekron recognizes that the ruler of the underworld is a very, very tired Fortune. His face is scowling red skull, with large twisted horns and bat-like wings. He wears a hat with the character for “king” inscribed on the front, and he always carries an antique board to which he fastens the record of a soul’s karma before he judges its reincarnation (or delegates such judgment to one of his subordinate judges) as well as his legendary scythe. He has priests, but receives few prayers; prayers are generally considered to annoy Ekron, since he is so overworked he will never have time to get to them, and they’d just pile up in his office. “Ekron will get to your prayer eventually” is an idiom that means to a Kigani, “your efforts are earnest, but pointless.” Bureaucrats and administrators often place images of Ekron in their offices; his fearsome visage is meant to be a bulwark against corruption and inefficiency.Hachiman
Hachiman, the Fortune of Battle, is perhaps the most popular Fortune among the samurai class. As a human, he was born with an archery glove already on his hand. History honours him as the inventor of mounted archery; even today, many archers whisper a prayer to him as they loose their first arrow of the day. The monks of Hachiman keep in his greatest shrine a library of letters, poems, and texts that he reportedly penned himself. Read closely, many of them seem to predict the coming of Shinsei hundreds of years later. It is said that if an invading fleet from beyond Kiga ever comes to its shores, Hachiman will descend from Tengoku in the form of a tornado to beat the invaders back.The Wanderer
The Wanderer is a trickster kami who takes the form of a wandering bard garbed in black. He has a knack to appear where important things are happening. Despite his tendency to very cleverly insult those around him, he always seems to know what needs to be said or done to help and encourage those who need it. He often tells stories to get a point across. The wanderer is bored by normal human interactions, to the point that he must put constraints upon himself to keep himself engaged in normal conversations, even ones that are full of importance and emotion where he maybe shouldn't be acting like this. And that is one of his failings.Kami and Their Clans
After the great tournament ended, at the command of the new Emperor each of the Kami gathered followers to themselves from among the people of Kiga and to pacify their new Empire in the name of Kiga Hantei I. Fu Leng, now infused with the power of Jigoku, and convinced by the dark, demonic whisperings of that place that his siblings had intentionally abandoned him after his fall from the Heavens, gathered a great army of oni, goblins and other creatures of the Shadowlands with the intent of invading his hated siblings' lands and claiming them for his own. Ryoshun, the only Kami who had died in Lord Moon's stomach, became the divine protector of the Spirit Realms. Kiga Hantei became the first Emperor of Kiga and the founder of its long-ruling Hantei dynasty, and his seven surviving divine siblings became the founders of the seven Great Clans of Kiga.A poor young samurai finds herself wandering a highland forest. As the evening dims, she checks the faded map she snuck out of her clan’s library. Somewhere within this forest is a shrine consecrated to a local kami—perhaps she might find shelter there.
Before long, her horse starts at a rustle of bushes here, a flutter of wings there, a darting shadow just at the edge of her vision. She spurs her steed to a canter, then a gallop. Unseen voices rise to an echoing, rattling cackle in response.
Beaks and steel identify them: a murder of tengu, on their own territory, each a master of fencing, certainly mischievous, likely murderous—and she is inexperienced, tired, hungry, and alone.
Exhaustion seeps from the samurai’s shoulders down through her muscles. Her armor and weapons feel heavy. She tumbles from the saddle. If she must die, at least her horse might escape.
Her legs weak and shaking, she kneels beneath an empress tree’s leaves. The tengu surround her…and as one, they kneel and bow, thrice times thrice each, and then flee. Bewildered, she returns their bow—and only then notices the faded prayer strips circling the tree’s trunk. Alone at last, she sits back among the tree roots, finally letting herself rest.
She’s found the shrine.