The Brotherhood

[Vutall]

The Brotherhood of Shinsei
In theory, all of Rokugan is united in the official Imperial religion of Shintao, which venerates both the Tao of Shinsei and the Thousand Fortunes. In practice, most holy people focus on one path of religion, possibly to the exclusion of the other. Broadly speaking, priests and shugenja practice kami no michi, the worship of the gods, fortunes, and other spirits, while monks focus on the Tao of Shinsei. It is these monks who form the Brotherhood of Shinsei, a sort of religion within the religion of Shintao.

The Brotherhood of Shinsei—which welcomes all genders—consists of numerous holy orders. An order is generally dedicated to a specific perspective on, or aspect of, Shinseism. Academic orders write, debate, and teach rich patrons; martial orders study weapons and tactics in order to defend vulnerable or peaceful Shinseists; medicinal orders maintain infirmaries in public locations; and exorcists keep demons and spirits at bay.

Some monks are outward-facing, not unlike priests: they minister to lay Shinseist flocks, conduct festivals and funerals, offer counseling, and maintain public temples. Other monks are inward-facing: they sequester themselves in monasteries and devote their entire life to contemplating Shinsei’s lessons, recopying Shinseist texts for popular consumption, and undertaking other activities of meditation and improvement. Practically speaking, though, many monks occupy a middle ground, engaging in activities to further their own understanding of the Tao while working to spread knowledge among the masses.


Joining the Brotherhood
Individuals—especially those of the samurai class, who have wealth and the luxury of choice—may become monks at any point in their lives. They must swear vows of nonviolence, poverty, chastity, honesty, temperance, and austerity (which individual orders frequently add to or subtract from); shave their heads; garb themselves in white, brown, or saffron; and dedicate themselves to a teacher. The vows are usually permanent but not necessarily so; monks who find that cloistered life disagrees with them may depart without stigma and may even return to try again at a later stage in life. At least, this is true on the part of the monastery. The Code of Bushidō is not so flexible, and some samurai who leave the life of a monk have no choice but to become a rōnin.

Technically, only faith in Shinsei’s teachings should motivate an entry into monastic life. Practically speaking, any number of factors, even selfish ones, may propel an individual, and especially a samurai, into monastic life. A samurai might want to flee a bad family or marriage situation to enjoy the status and respect due to a monk of a well-known order. They might want to convert to a certain lineage of Shinseism to gain the respect of that lineage’s followers. They might tire of constant strife and politics and wish to sequester themselves from it.

Monks who shave their heads to dodge politics would do well to research their chosen monastery carefully if they really want some peace and quiet, because many prominent priests and monks, and accordingly many temples, are major players in Rokugan’s great political games. Shinseism’s involvement in politics is a matter of furious debate. On the one hand, Shinsei himself spoke at length on how the principle of compassion links personal conduct to social good. Humans are inherently social creatures, and a person’s Shinseist practice affects interactions with friends and family, with strangers, and with governmental and other authorities. Many of Shinsei’s parables discuss, at least on the surface, ethical influences facing feudal authorities: Is there such a thing as a just war? How should one respond to a restive or rebellious populace if their grievances are valid? Thus, it is traditional and not particularly surprising for Shinseists at least to advise rulers; after all, that’s what the Tao of Shinsei does.

At the same time, many Shinseists believe Shinsei’s discussions with leaders and teachings on government to be surface-level illustrations or allegories about what really matters: the individual’s introspective path. They point to the errors of Shinseist clerics who get involved in politics or business and are drawn into violence or treachery as evidence of the same.


Well-known Monastic Orders
Bishamon Monks
Bishamon monks embody the contradiction inherent in modern Rokugani Shintao. As their patron is the Fortune of Strength, they belong to the category of Fortunist monks. Such monks embrace the unity of Shintao to the fullest, with two sets of interrelated duties. One is to study, meditate, and create art in the tradition of Shinseist monks everywhere. The other is to uphold and conduct all of the traditional rites for the propitiation and honor of Fortunes, including the maintenance of the Fortunes’ shrines.

The Bishamon monks’ headquarters is Bishamon’s Divine Library, in the highlands near Otosan Uchi. These monks are particularly notorious for their habit of protesting in response to political decisions that displease them. For example, if the Emperor appoints a disliked abbot or priest to a prominent position of authority, they take Bishamon’s shintai from its shrine in the library, place it in a traveling housing that can be carried on several burly monks’ shoulders, and march en masse from their monasteries, waving armaments and rosaries and chanting slogans or sutras. They crowd into the streets of a town or city near where the offense took place and draw massive crowds of common folk. There, the loudest and angriest monks orate on the subject of the sins involved in whatever decision they believe is unjust, on the no-doubt-horrific consequences of such a decision for the Empire’s future, and on the offending authority’s inevitable reincarnation as a flatworm or similarly repugnant being.

Sending a garrison out to intimidate monks into going home often fails, since even warriors who can stomach attacking folk of the cloth are loath to march on the shintai of Bishamon for fear of offending the Fortune—especially not in full view of the worshipful common folk on whom they depend for food, drink, and material resources. Lords and Emperors have been fond of sending enterprising and charismatic young samurai out to find solutions to the intractable issue of a Bishamon protest.


Monks of the Seven Thunders
The Order of the Seven Thunders maintains the Shrine of the Seven Thunders. Its monastic practice is focused on the image, personality, story, and meaning of each of the Seven Thunders. The Thunders, as well as their relationships with one another and popular conceptions about them, are each studied and written about extensively. What does it mean to emulate Mirumoto? Or Matsu? While the Monks of the Seven Thunders have a considerable academic interest in the Thunders, even more important to them is the religious art they make to honor the Thunders and their relationship to Shinsei. The Monks of the Seven Thunders set the style, and are infinitely emulated, in the creation of statuary, paintings, landscape designs, and even plays representing the Thunders’ persons, lives, and deeds.

The monks’ works of art, studies, and travels have a secret significance. The monks are preparing for a day they are certain will come, a secret they have shared with few: a second Day of Thunder, when the Seven Thunders reborn will have to face Fu Leng once again. This could be the end of the world or the beginning of a new one—the monks know not which. Therefore, their study has a practical bent: they want knowledge about the Thunders to spread as broadly and evocatively as possible so that they influence those destined—if such a destiny is real—to become those Thunders.

Monks of Osano-Wo
Late in his life, Osano-wo, the future Fortune of Fire and Thunder, founded a martial arts school to pass on his considerable martial knowledge. He built a fine dōjō using timber he cut himself from the forest, a simple task for so big and strong a man. He lined the walls with his favorite weapons and armor. Then, he waited for students. The very first was a diminutive old monk. She had no prior combat experience but had to travel frequently, and she wanted to learn to defend herself. At first, he offered her a two-handed weapon to make up for her lack of reach and power without taxing her muscles, but it was awkward for her short stature. Then he gave her two swords, but their weight tired her feeble arms. Finally, he suggested boxing.

This turned out to be the correct choice. As fast as Osano-wo was, the old monk was so small she could duck and flank his massive frame easily. He had to adapt techniques designed for large, burly soldiers to train the small, old monk. He taught her to use the hard parts of her body to strike the soft parts of his, so she learned to damage small bones, soft tissue, and muscles with careful aim. She needed impeccable precision to make these adapted techniques work, but she practiced diligently, and so prevailed. Eventually, she learned to handle heavier weapons like swords and cudgels, but her favorite weapons were small knives and weights she could conceal in her hands or clothes: ideal for evening the odds with overconfident bullies.

According to legend—and no one knows enough to verify it, save the monks of this school—the monk, Tamadora, became the second headmaster of Osano-wo’s dōjō after his death. She expanded the school into a monastery—not to be confused with the temple to Osano-wo built on the islands of the Mantis Clan—to honor the memory of the Fortune of Fire and Thunder. Newcomers to the school, attracted by Osano-wo’s larger-than-life reputation, are often frustrated by the precision required by their style, which requires even the biggest and mightiest brawlers to fight like someone small and weak, and which cannot be learned except through exhaustive repetition and practice.

Most quit, and learn to fight just as effectively with a style better suited to their strengths. But Tamadora-ryū allows physically limited fighters in a world bigger and stronger than them to keep up—if they’re willing to work harder than everyone else. Sometimes it’s not enough, but the style gives them a chance—and it is an excellent foundation should they choose to study something else once they’ve mastered Tamadora-ryū.

The ethical lessons of Osano-wo’s monastery parallel its martial ones. Just as Osano-wo learned to grapple, literally and figuratively, with how to help someone without his physical advantages, the monks of Osano-wo study Shinsei’s compassion and Osano-wo’s might through helping the strong lift up the weak, the clever teach the foolish, and the small punch the large.