Rural Life

[Vutall]

The Foundation of a Civilization
No matter how powerful a civilization is politically or militarily, or how sophisticated it is culturally, socially, or economically, without a solid foundation based on a reliable supply of food, clean water, and basic goods, it is doomed to fail. The Emerald Empire is no exception. The Kami knew this, and although each imparted different lessons to their new followers after their fall from the Heavens, all of them emphasized the importance of agriculture and the essential crafts. With advances in agriculture came the fuel needed to build an empire. The population grew explosively, and the Kami lead their followers into large towns, then eventually massive cities supported by the infrastructure surrounding them. It is from this simple and straightforward beginning that the modern Empire was born

The Land
Shortly after the Kami Hantei won the tournament to select the first Emperor, the Kami established the basic laws governing the new Empire. One of the first, and most important, stated that all lands and resources in the Empire belong to the Emperor, who acts as their custodian on behalf of the Celestial Heavens. This has remained a bedrock principle ever since, giving rise to the fundamental structure of governance in Rokugan.

It is obviously unworkable for a single person, even if they are the Emperor, to directly administer all of the lands in the Empire. Accordingly, a system of tenancy was developed by which the Emperor delegates to the clans portions of the Empire, which are administered by the clan champions. The champions, in turn, further subdivide the lands granted to their clan and have each such piece overseen by one of their clan’s family daimyō. These daimyō further divide and delegate lands to samurai lords who are their vassals, and so on. At the very bottom of this cascade of land allocation are the commoners: the farmers who actually turn the soil and plant and harvest the crops. It is important to emphasize that despite this progressive allocation of land to vassals, none of them actually own the land they’ve been granted: ownership of the land belongs exclusively to the Emperor

Obviously, not all lands are of equal value for all types of use. Fertile, arable lands suited for farming are not rare, but they tend to be concentrated in particular parts of the Empire: notably, along large rivers and in coastal areas. Other parts of the Empire are either too mountainous, too wet, too dry, too heavily forested, or too barren to support meaningful agriculture. This doesn’t mean these lands are entirely unproductive, however. For instance, forests provide lumber, and a wide range of plants are used for medicinal, decorative, and other purposes; mountainous and rocky areas often contain valuable mineral deposits and are quarried for stone. Even in these cases, it is the commoners who generally act as the woodcutters, miners, and other workers exploiting these resources

Farms and Villages
At the bottom of the system of land tenancy in Rokugan is the farm, the basic building block of the Empire’s economy. Farms are the most common institution in the Empire, simply because they are necessary for growing the food consumed by all of its citizens, samurai and commoners alike. The food that farms produce is collected and transported to villages, then from villages to towns and from towns to cities. In return, the villages, towns, and cities provide other types of goods and services, such as finished products and even military forces deployed to defend smaller population centers and outlying rural areas from attack. This continuous cycle of activity from farm to village, village to town, town to city, and then back again is the foundation of the Empire’s economy.

Wherever possible, farms cluster closely together within fertile areas to provide for mutual security and defense and to allow farmers and their families to achieve efficiencies by pooling their labor and resources. Long ago in many of these clusters of farms, people began to create items and facilities that helped them increase their farms’ production and more effectively process, store, and transport their yield. These included everything from ropes and rice-drying racks to baskets and barrels to mills and granaries. These groups of farmers and the craftspeople who made the items and buildings they needed for their farms formed the first villages in the Empire.

Some villages continued to grow, becoming towns and cities, but most remained as they were: small, relatively isolated communities consisting almost entirely of commoners. Of course, some farms were located far from these new and growing villages and remained dotted throughout the landscape. This is still the typical character of a rural, agricultural area in the modern Empire: isolated, individual farms scattered through the lands and farms surrounding the villages that are the focus of everyday life for most of the common people of the Empire

Other Resources
Much of Rokugan is not particularly suited to agriculture, and farms are rarely found in such areas. However, these rocky, forested, or otherwise infertile regions still provide valuable resources to the Empire, and as such have villages to support their extraction.

Fishing Villages: The sea provides many staple foodstuffs for the Empire, including fish, shellfish, and seaweed. Those who extract these things from the sea live in villages that are located on rivers or coasts and are other-wise similar to farming villages. These villages’ locations are dictated by proximity to favor-able fishing grounds and the availability of sheltered harbors.

Mines: Iron, copper, tin, silver, and gold are all essential to the Empire, and other mined commodities can be vital for specific purposes, such as the jade used to combat the creatures and effects of the Shadowlands. Deposits of these materials tend to be relatively small and discrete, and mines have limited lifespans before they are exhausted. As a result, mining villages are often small and isolated and have a temporary character to them.

Lumber: Most Rokugani structures are made of wood, with paper interior walls. Lumber is, therefore, an important commodity in the Empire. Like mining villages, communities of lumberjacks tend to be small and relatively isolated. However, the resource they exploit is renewable, so many of these woodcutting villages are old and well established

Communication
The clans and Imperial families use a number of methods (of varying effectiveness) to attempt to maintain at least sporadic communication with the more far-flung parts of the Empire.

Clans dispatch their own couriers, or obtain information from samurai traveling on other business.

The Imperial Heralds of the Miya family travel throughout the Empire to promulgate new Imperial edicts and laws.

The Barefoot Brethren, a sect of the Brotherhood of Shinsei devoted to Koshin, the Fortune of Roads, travel throughout Rokugan at the behest of samurai and commoners alike to gather and deliver news.

Carrier pigeons, originally used by the Crane and subsequently reintroduced by the Unicorn, are a rare communications method used by more pragmatic members of some clans

Grass and Snow
The lands of the Emerald Empire cover a great span, encompassing deep forests, wide plains, and high mountains, and the climate of Rokugan varies just as greatly. Some people even say that each clan is deeply shaped by its surroundings, although many Great Clan samurai resent such claims

Much of Rokugan is temperate. The lands of the Lion and Scorpion enjoy the full range of the sea-sons, from sweltering summers to snowy winters. Scorpion lands on the windward side of the Spine of the World Mountains receive more rain during the warm months and more snow in the winter, while Lion territory enjoys clearer skies overall, with sufficient rainfall to nourish its fertile plains.

The cool northern lands of the Dragon and Phoenix experience mild summers and biting winters. While the coastal lands of the Phoenix are more temperate, the high elevations the Dragons favor are even colder; some Togashi monasteries remain snow covered throughout the year. Despite their northern position, the lands of the Unicorn remain much warmer than those of their neighbors, thanks to the warm winds that blow down from both the western end of the Great Wall of the North mountains and the Spine of the World Mountains

The southern lands of the Crane and those of the Crab are generally the warmest in Rokugan, with climates reaching the subtropical. The coastal region and the Crab lands at the foot of the Twilight Mountains are particularly humid and rainy, which some outsiders blame for the Crab’s dour attitudes and architecture

Challenges Facing Rural Communities
The Empire’s farms and villages face many of the same challenges as its towns and cities. However, thanks to their remoteness, isolation, and limited resources and expertise, rural communities are less able to withstand and recover from damaging events.

Weather
Weather is, by far, one of the most important factors in the life and health of farms and villages. While winters are somewhat more moderate in coastal areas of Rokugan, inland regions tend to have winters that are long, cold, and windy, with heavy accumulations of snow. Farmers and villagers begin preparing for the upcoming winter as soon as the previous one has ended. As winter nears, food must be stockpiled and stored in such a way that it won’t spoil during the long, cold winter months. The difficulty of living through this period in inland regions must be factored into tax col-lectors’ calculations, to ensure that the Empire derives maximum value from its farms while leaving farmers with sufficient food to survive. Samurai lords must like-wise be careful regarding how much of their farming vassals’ crops they put up for sale or trade.

Even the most careful and conservative reckonings cannot account for all of the vagaries of the weather, though. During the growing season, periods of heavy rainfall can flood and damage fields, while too little can result in drought and crop failure. Storms can batter crops with hail. The elemental imbalance afflicting the Empire has only accentuated these effects, threatening to turn local weather problems into regional or even Empire-wide disasters.

Natural Disasters
Many parts of the Empire are prone to natural disasters, and with the ongoing elemental imbalance, these catastrophic events appear to have become worse and more frequent. Coastal regions are vulnerable to tsunami, massive waves triggered by underwater earth-quakes. The coastal plains of the Crane Clan, some of the most fertile lands in the Empire, were flooded three years ago by a series of tsunami that contaminated vast tracts of soil with mud, silt, and salt water, necessitating that they be left untilled. Earthquakes also occur in inland areas, damaging buildings and roads as well as the dikes and irrigation systems essential for rice production. Volcanoes occasionally erupt in the Spine of the World Mountains or the Great Wall of the North mountains, spewing ash over huge areas, while wild-fires can ravage forests and grasslands, particularly during the dry, hot months of late summer

The people hit hardest by such catastrophes are the commoners in the rural and remote parts of the Empire. Those who survive must cope and then rebuild almost entirely on their own, at least initially. Aid may eventually arrive, but it may take many days or even weeks. Even then, the provision of aid depends on its availability and on the importance the samurai lord attaches to the area and population in question.

War
Rokugan is a militant place, its culture and society steeped in battle and war. Invasions from outside the Empire are extremely rare, the exception being attacks from the evil hordes of the Shadowlands. These are doggedly held back by the heroism and sacrifice of the Crab Clan. A successful incursion by the Shadowlands would result in destruction far beyond that of any mortal conflict. Strife between and sometimes even with-in the clans is common, however. The inevitably grim result is land trodden and churned up by marching armies and their battles, destruction of property (both accidental and deliberate), and mass displacement of refugees. Commoners forced to flee their farms and villages cease to be productive servants of the Empire—in the eyes of its rulers—and their continued need for food and other resources further strains the available supply.

The Code of Bushidō and simple practicality mean that samurai usually try to avoid inflicting excessive harm on the peasantry. Not only does doing so violate the Bushidō tenet of Compassion, but it effectively means damaging the means of producing food and other resources upon which those same samurai rely.

Unfortunately, in the face of war, harm can only be minimized, not eliminated altogether. Moreover, particularly aggressive or thoughtless samurai may some-times specifically target an opponent’s commoners, seeking to undermine the opponent’s ability to wage war by striking at them logistically and economically. Such shortsightedness is rare—after all, the rule of the peasantry changes with that of their land—but it does occur. Not surprisingly, samurai place great emphasis on restoring the peasantry to their productive labors as quickly as possible after hostilities cease

Isolation
While some remote villages only see a samurai when the time comes to collect taxes, even those in better-traveled parts of the Empire may only rarely be visited by the nobility. Even then, most samurai simply pass through on their way to business elsewhere. Accordingly, the arrival of samurai in a village of heimin and burakumin is almost always an important event; in the most remote places, it may be a profoundly significant happening indeed

Most villages do not allow themselves to be surprised by the unexpected arrival of samurai. Unless it is the depths of winter, when few Rokugani travel any great distances, heimin are generally at work in the fields and forests around their village. Using a discreet system of signaling particular to each community, those who first spy approaching samurai pass news back to the village center. This typically prompts many heimin, and virtually all burakumin, to quickly find a reason to be else-where in order to avoid unwanted attention from these imposing visitors. Similarly, if some villagers happen to be up to nefarious business—anything from trying to cheat on taxes to participating in heretical cults—then the culprits take this opportunity to attempt to hide the evidence. This is not always successful, of course. Having samurai PCs discern incriminating evidence of such an activity can be an interesting story hook.

The remaining commoners, normally including the village leadership, place themselves in a position to respectfully greet the traveling samurai, offering hospitality that is unlikely to be accept-ed. If the samurai are magistrates and it is time for tax collection, then goods representing the taxes owed are generally made readily available. In any case, the objective of the commoners throughout the visit is to avoid offending their samurai guests while giving them every reason to be on their way as quickly as possible, so the commoners’ lives can return to normal.

Samurai and Rural Rokugan
The relationship between samurai and commoners in Rokugan is a complex one, with much more nuance than it may first appear. Some specific aspects of the inter-actions between samurai and commoners are unique to the farms and villages of the rural Empire

Samurai Among The Commoners
In general, samurai prefer not to spend more time than absolutely necessary in the Empire’s rural areas. Not only do these remote places have few of the amenities to which most samurai are accustomed, but even the lowest ranking samurai will find few, if any, social peers there. Bluntly put, there is little to interest most samurai in rural Rokugan.

In a broader sense, most samurai believe that little of importance occurs outside the towns and cities, which reveals a disconnect in their thinking, as it is from these “unimportant” and “uninteresting” places that the food they eat and other resources they consume come. That said, most samurai do recognize that without the labor of the common people, the Empire would quickly collapse into chaos.

The main reason why samurai do leave the relative comfort and engagement of a town or city and travel among the farms and villages is that their duties require them to do so. For example:

Samurai who are acting as couriers or messengers must travel, sometimes for great distances, across the Empire. This naturally takes them through rural areas. Some samurai—particularly Miya Heralds—do this routinely as part of their duties. These samurai can become quite accustomed to the hardships and privation of long periods spent on the road and among farms and villages. Some even come to prefer it to the business and bustle of the urban Empire, although such samurai are generally considered odd by their peers.

Samurai who are simply traveling from one castle to another likewise must pass through rural areas, but they generally do so as quickly as possible.

Magistrates frequently travel the rural roads and byways of the Empire in performance of their duties to uphold Imperial law and to collect taxes owing to samurai lords and, ultimately, the Emperor.

Some unfortunate samurai are given duties that require them to reside in remote villages and similar places. For example, a samurai may be permanently assigned as magistrate to oversee a string of villages, a duty that forces them to take up residence in the countryside. Generally, such assignments are a form of punishment for incompetence or wrongdoing that doesn’t warrant seppuku or similarly dire consequences. They are also used to neutralize political opponents or deal with embarrassing relatives by placing them in out-of-the-way locations.

During times of war, samurai naturally spend time—sometimes lengthy periods of it—living, marching, and fighting in the fields, forests, farms, and villages of the rural Empire.

Goshi
Most samurai are expected to remain close to their lord, near their castle or court and apart from the vassal commoners. Those who do not are normally exiled to remote, rural places as a form of punishment. A few samurai, however, choose to live in rural areas, among the commoners. They are known as goshi, or countryside warriors.

While goshi retain the status and authority of their position, it is not uncommon for them to tie up their kimono sleeves and work alongside the peasants they oversee. Samurai of the Sparrow Clan take this to an extreme, all samurai of this Minor Clan effectively being goshi. Due to their rustic nature, goshi are derided by more urbane samurai, who use the term as a slur.

In exceptional cases, a peasant may be given specific privileges of the samurai caste and gain the authority of a goshi. They may even be given the right to bear swords, have an audience with their lord, or use a family name. These goshi are found only in the most remote locations, where appointment of a true samurai vassal is impossible.

Goshi tend to have a greater degree of closeness to the heimin they supervise than other samurai do. Because of this, heimin loyalty to goshi runs deep, and these rural samurai enjoy considerable sway over their local area.

Taxation
Generally speaking, samurai do not pay taxes in Rokugan. Taxation is derived from wealth; wealth results from things being created through labor, and samurai do not engage in “labor.” In reality, though, many samurai do engage in commercial enterprises, albeit normally at arm’s length through intermediary retainers, such as heimin merchants. Such enterprises often do get taxed, but this represents only a small part of the revenue realized by the clans and the Imperial authorities. The vast majority of taxes are a proportion of the real goods, including food and other resources, produced by the commoners of the rural Empire

These types of taxes are normally taken as a fixed portion of goods produced. For example, farmers may be required to pay one of every ten koku (one koku is about five bushels) of rice they produce as taxes to their samurai lord. The actual amount varies based on factors such as the quantity of rice and other commodities produced that year, the effects of droughts or blights on crops, and the needs and even whims of the lord in question. Most lords make a good-faith effort to balance the amount of taxes they levy against the needs of the commoners; overtaxing peasants to the point of starvation is counterproductive and may lead to unrest among them.

That said, most samurai lords are uncompromising regarding the taxes they do demand. Any attempts to avoid paying the full taxes owed are considered serious crimes and usually result in severe punishments, including execution of the miscreants, as a deterrent to other would-be tax cheats

Unrest Among The Commoners
The official Imperial histories record only a few instances of revolt among the peasantry, generally describing them as local and quickly put down. In fact, however, there have been more than a few eruptions of riot and revolution among the commoners, some of them quite widespread

The most common reason for unrest is poor treatment of the commoners by their samurai masters. The Celestial Order notwithstanding, commoners are just as given to resentment over things like cruel treatment, poor living conditions, and excessive taxation as samurai would be. Moreover, the tedious, laborious life of commoners in Rokugan makes them fertile ground for incitement by charismatic leaders and populist causes. A current example is the Perfect Land Sect, a heretical movement claiming equality among all castes, samurai and commoner alike, through Shinsei’s salvation. Once the spark of rebellion against injustice or the passion-ate fervor of a dynamic figure ignites the fires of unrest, it can quickly spread, leading to full-on revolution against the authority of the samurai.

The response from those samurai is, of course, generally swift and brutal; this is, after all, a crime against the Celestial Order and, by extension, against the Heavens themselves. Armies are dispatched to put the rebellion down, and those known or believed to be the leaders of the revolt are summarily put to death. Most samurai recognize that potential unrest among the commoners is never far away—and that the price of avoiding it is constant vigilance and merciless punishment for anyone even contemplating turning against their samurai lord.

[Vutall]

Rural Life
The majority of Rokugan’s population dwells far from its cities and the relative convenience of urban life. Instead, they live in small communities that must be largely self-sufficient. Small villages and isolated farms cannot depend upon regular merchant traffic. Instead, they need to be able to grow or make everything that they need to maintain their community.

Villages near a major road may see frequent visitors, while more isolated communities can go years with-out seeing any outsider except the tax collector. With permission from the head or the area’s samurai lord, inhabitants can visit neighboring towns for trade or to see a skilled craftsperson, but such journeys require time and entail dangers that make them impractical for most bonge. Consequently, the world becomes a smaller place for those who dwell in rural communities. Many spend their entire life never traveling more than ten miles from their place of birth. Over generations, neighbors become extended family, as the lack of travel leaves most residents of a permanent village related.

Foods and other goods that are produced within the village are the staples of peasants’ lives. Anything that cannot be made or grown nearby is precious or a delicacy. Tuna, which makes up the majority of the protein for coastal village residents, might be a completely foreign food for the residents of an inland mining town. A metal plow could be a prestigious tool passed on to succeeding generations in one village, while every family in a town with a skilled blacksmith might have their own. Differences in the scarcity of various mundane goods play a major factor in distinguishing villages and regions from one another

When visitors arrive in a town, it may be a cause for celebration or dread. In less secure regions, outsiders often mean brigands. Not surprisingly, villagers in these places are seldom welcoming, but rather suspicious of anyone they don’t recognize who approach-es their homes. Some isolated outposts, however, are accustomed to seeing traveling merchants as their most likely visitors. When an outsider arrives, these villagers gather to hear stories of distant places and care-fully peruse whatever goods are on offer. The clan that administers a village’s land also affects its residents’ reactions to visitors. Villagers in Crane lands are often generous hosts, while those with Crab lords tend to come across as standoffish.

While villagers almost universally show proper respect and reverence for the Emperor and the government that he commands, they often have only a limited practical relationship with the Empire. They identify themselves as members of their village first, often making this a more important part of their identity than their clan, as both clan and Empire can seem far away for a rural peasant. This is partly due to their isolation, but it is also due to the limited number of services that the Empire directly provides. Heimin villagers are expected to pay taxes and, if ordered, submit to military service. In return, they receive little. In many parts of the Empire, roads are poorly maintained and the military does little to keep the brigand population in check. Consequently, some citizens might quietly resent the rice they must pay to samurai while they struggle to survive. Often, the combination of religious teachings and fear of retribution provide the strongest reasons for them to remain true to the Empire

Regions with a generous daimyō—or at least a sympathetic one—tend to have bonge who feel a greater connection to the Empire. Heimin who regularly receive protection or other assistance from their lord are less prone to resentment for the taxes they pay and the responsibilities they must fulfill. In some cases, communities may even receive assistance from their samurai for capital improvements, particularly roads and irrigation systems. While such assistance is not common, when it occurs, it is instrumental in improving loyalty

Samurai Travelers
The nobility have few reasons to visit rural communities. Tax collectors serve as their primary representatives to isolated communities. Rarely, samurai may decide to take tours of their holdings, visiting all of the lands over which they hold authority, but this is not a standard practice. Consequently, visits are most likely to occur if there is a significant problem—insurrection, banditry, or the like—or if the samurai is simply passing through a region and stops to obtain lodging and hospitality.

A visit normally begins with a stop at the local village leader’s home. As recompense for their added responsibilities, their dwelling contains a secondary room for hosting visitors, particularly noble ones. For the duration of the samurai’s visit, the leader attempts to be a generous and gracious host. The village’s other bonge are drafted into service to assist with hosting responsibilities, which include providing the samurai with any comforts they require.

Those comforts are, naturally, limited to the goods that the village has available. A samurai with a refined palate is certain to find the available cuisine limited and disappointing. Most farms would at best have a single seasonable vegetable, such as carrot or radish, to add to any available rice, and no spices. In fact, the rice that is served to the samurai is a luxury to the bonge, who must make do with millet.

Just as the food variety is limited, the accommodations are unlikely to be up to the standards of a member of the nobility. A village leader’s home is furnished with some of the best furniture and goods available to the area’s villagers, but these are still crude, barring the presence of an exceptional craftspeople. A sleeping mat is certain to be uncomfortable, and any privacy is simply due to the placement of a paper screen between the leader’s family and the guest’s room, forcing the samurai to hear the night sounds of the peasants.

Under such conditions, few samurai choose to stay in a village for an extended period. Notably, an extend-ed stay is likely to compromise the village’s production, as many of the heimin must ignore their normal responsibilities in order to assist with hosting. Fortunately, the rice and other luxuries that are provided to visitors who are members of the local lord’s clan are drawn directly from goods set aside to be paid in taxes to that noble. However, if a visitor draws too deeply upon these reserves, the lord responsible for the village may seek compensation of some sort from the lord of the visiting samurai at a later date. Similarly, the village leader is likely to become increasingly concerned at the depletion of tax reserves, recognizing that the depletion must be explained to the tax collector. These problems are exacerbated if the samurai taking advantage of the village’s hospitality hails from a rival clan, in which case reimbursement from that clan is unlikely. If the village’s lord does not kindly make up for the shortfall or otherwise take responsibility, the village leader may face punishment at the hands of the magistrate, their regional daimyō, or both

Itinerant Clergy
Of the many monasteries across the Emerald Empire, most are deliberately located in isolated, rural areas. This grants the monks the opportunity to reflect with-out intrusion. Many villages have a monastery within a few days’ travel. Religious rites, including funerals, weddings, and seasonal celebrations, may receive a blessing from an itinerant monk if no priest is available. Many of the shrines that become a central part of each village’s identity have an assigned priest, but this is not always the case, and the smallest villages may not even have a shrine. Monks regularly visit with the bonge and hinin who dwell in these places to provide for their spiritual needs

Due to their distinctive robes—particularly those of the saffron color popular among many sects—monks are easily recognized, even at a great distance. As a consequence, farmers working the fields usually spot approaching monks well in advance of their arrival. This gives them ample opportunity to gather and make appropriate preparations. This may mean cooking a special meal, alerting the parties responsible for the village’s shrine, or simply cleaning a bit to make the village and its residents more presentable for the arrival of such a respected individual.

A visiting monk’s arrival is usually greeted as a reason for at least a small celebration. The monk is treated as an honored guest. Residents are unlikely to deplete their reserves to the same extent that they might for a visiting samurai, but they do not hesitate to make a reasonable sacrifice. Any visiting monk is given an opportunity to visit the shrine, meet with community leaders, and speak to the gathered villagers. Villagers who seek special blessings, spiritual insights, or other advice may meet with a monk privately, sometimes in their own home or at the shrine

Although the arrival of a priest or monk is a special occasion, many villagers are likely to continue their daily routine when it occurs. Unless the arrival coincides with a festival celebration, work remains that must be completed. Visiting with the monk may need to wait until the evening, during times normally set aside for prayer and reflection upon the day. Consequently, such a visit has a much less significant cost for the village than would the visit of a samurai

Heimin
The vast majority of the people dwelling in rural communities are bonge. These residents perform the majority of the labor required to sustain each village. Their lives focus on family and community, which is often simply an extended family. The obligations to keep their villages functioning, meet their tax obligations, and keep their relatives healthy require a daily commitment that offers little time for leisure. Not surprisingly, this dictates that these people rarely travel far from their homes. Instead, they toil endlessly to take advantage of the limited resources they have, lest those be taken from them.

Water
Every village needs water. Often, a navigable stream or a reliable spring is the reason a village exists in a particular locale. Days typically begin when bonge retrieve the water that their families need to consume and use for cleaning. Water is also needed for any crops they grow or gardens they tend in order to supplement foods purchased or bartered for. Each village’s water source is a precious shared commodity, taking the form of a well, stream, or spring.

CommunaL Labor
Each day’s labor is planned out in advance and is based upon the seasons. During the growing seasons—all but winter—farmers must spend their days in the fields, which are often shared communally by the village. As long as they have sunlight by which to work, they plant new crops, tend to the ones already growing, and harvest those that have matured. Tools are typically made from bamboo and shell, as metal is precious and can corrode too quickly in the rice paddies.

When the need arises, villagers gather to help one another construct new buildings, including houses. In places where foraging or fishing are viable supplemental practices, bonge villagers often work together to engage in these tasks. During the winter months, farmers repair and maintain their tools so that all is ready for the next growing season.

Childcare is a shared responsibility as well. Some villagers care for the children of multiple families, so that more people can perform work in the fields or mines. This leads to closely shared upbringings, which further interweaves the lives of the villagers.

Artisan bonge, including blacksmiths, brewers, and weavers, are an exception to the practice of communal labor. While they may contribute to larger projects like building construction, the larger community does not participate in their work, as their duties require specialized skills.

Hinin
Every village requires work that only the hinin are fit to perform. Refuse must be hauled from each home on a regular basis. This includes night soil, which can be composted into fertilizer for the fields. The deceased must be properly prepared for cremation. Livestock must be slaughtered, and game animals must be hunt-ed and prepared. Leather is a necessity for daily use, but only hinin work within a tannery.

These workers suffer daily miseries within their small communities. Their homes are apart from those of the heimin, and they have the lowest priority in all things. They can only fetch their water after all of their social superiors have done so, or they may have a separate well entirely that they must draw from instead, often farther away than the village’s main water source. When going about their work, which usually involves dealing with foul-smelling waste, they must always be certain to avoid the paths of others. If they do not, they are certain to suffer abuse.

Given villages’ small populations, each villager recognizes every other villager on sight, so hinin have no refuge from degradation. Not only is their daily work exhausting, but it must be performed under demeaning conditions. Even during a festival, when bonge have an opportunity to ignore their responsibilities, hinin suffer glares and verbal abuse.

Further, hinin represent only a small proportion of a village’s population. Their duties must be performed, but there is not enough of this work to support a size-able number. In the case of isolated farms, there might only be a single hinin who fulfills all of these duties. Some small villages include only a single family of hinin, who have little opportunity to interact with a community of their peers who empathize with their plight

These workers essentially have no opportunity to escape the lives into which they are born. They have no chance for advancement, and only rarely even a chance to move to another village. Unless they marry a member of their caste in another village, an unfamiliar hinin is unlikely to be accepted away from their home. Unsurprisingly, many bandits come from this background, as banditry offers the only opportunity to escape their daily torment. The risk of capital punishment may seem far less severe when compared to a life of shoveling night soil. Still, most hinin would never contemplate leaving their community. The more devout hold that their only hope for a better life through reincarnation is through unquestioning duty; the practical simply know that their chances of survival outside of a village are far worse.