Scorpion/Crab Lands - The River Of Gold (Kin Nokawa)

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The River Of Gold (Kin Nokawa)
The Kin no Kawa is a wide, slow-moving river with its headwaters in the mountains on the northern edge of Scorpion lands. It flows south before emptying into the ocean near the Yasuki estates. At one time, the river was the Scorpion’s primary trade route, earning it the name River of Gold

The waters of the river are clear and bright until it bisects Ryokō Owari Toshi, the “second-largest” city in Rokugan and the hub of the opium trade. The river widens there into the Bay of Drowned Honor before continuing south. According to legend, two samurai met to duel on the Moment’s Edge Bridge, which crossed the bay to the north, but a storm blew up and a wave swept one of the samurai over. The other jumped after him to finish their duel, and both bodies washed up on shore the next morning.

There is a less romantic story to the bay: that it’s where all the city’s dung runs out. Regardless, the bay is lined with warehouses and docks. It serves a critical role in facilitating legitimate trade on the river, and also as a hub of the opium trade.

South of Scorpion lands, the river forks. The smaller branch runs east to the ocean, while the main trunk of the river continues to wind southward. The Fox Clan’s palace is built overlooking this juncture. The Fox’s inability or unwillingness to stop Mantis raiders from sailing in and attacking Scorpion shipping has been a sore point between the clans for some generations.

The last navigable stretch of the river ends at Clear Water Village—in truth, a city—and below that, the riv-er becomes an impossible tumble of rapids and water-falls. Clear Water Village is the Crab Clan’s best trading port, and as such, it is heavily fortified, with conventional walls surrounding it on land and the immense Kaiu Wave Wall securing the harbor against attacks from the sea.

Innumerable towns and villages have sprung up between these major cities to profit off of the bounty of trade flowing along the river. Such is the temptation of wealth that many of these villages straddle the line between trading and plundering. Each season, merchants from the Scorpion’s Bayushi family and the Crab’s Yasuki family have to raise funds and beseech their daimyō for aid to fight back the river pirates. With Mantis Clan raiders growing bolder by the year, the Bayushi and Yasuki have been forced to work more closely together. Meanwhile, the Bayushi use their vassal Rokugo family to control gaming parlors and black markets along the river, profiting off the very pirates that the public face of the family is devoted to fighting