Scorpion Lands - Kyūden Bayushi: Silk and Shadow Palace
Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2020 7:50 pm
Kyūden Bayushi
Silk and Shadow Palace, home of the Scorpion Clan’s ruling family, is unusual in that it seems, outwardly, fairly ordinary: a large, conventional nine-story keep located within an expansive and beautiful (but seemingly only lightly defended) walled complex atop a low plateau. In many ways, it resembles the Crane Clan’s famous Kyūden Doji—another large complex atop a height with minimal fortifications—but the comparison is only an outward one. As it is so often with the Scorpion, the beautiful face presented to the rest of the Empire is a lie
The interior of the keep is quite pleasant and comfortable, again very much like a Crane castle. Attentive servants make sure every guest is well cared for and even pampered. However, guests quickly become aware of the unique physical oddity of Kyūden Bayushi: the interior of the keep has no walls save for a few key load-bearing structures. Instead, all the rooms and hall-ways are created from shōji screens and easily moved partitions, allowing the floor layouts to be changed at will. Many guests who spend the night in Kyūden Bayushi awaken to find that they seem to be in a totally different part of the palace than before. The Scorpion sometimes use this trick to put guests in an embarrassing position (for example, finding themselves unable to find the meeting room they used the day before) or simply to make them uneasy and set them off-kilter.
The keep is surrounded and accessed via an elaborate maze that appears to be constructed of trimmed hedges, but these in fact conceal strong walls. Known colloquially as Bayushi’s Labyrinth, the maze incorporates moving pathways and hidden entrances to the network of tunnels beneath the plateau. During times of peace, the Scorpion use the maze as a source of entertainment for their guests, inviting them to test their cunning against it. During warfare, the many traps hidden within the maze are activated, forming a lethal obstacle to anyone unauthorized trying to approach the keep.
Kyūden Bayushi also boasts an expansive garden that fills all of the plateau that is not occupied by the palace complex. The garden centers on a large artificial pond and incorporates its associated streams, with pathways and bridges connecting the various sections. Numerous ancestral shrines are located throughout the garden; curiously, all of them are dedicated to Scorpion who attained attention throughout the Empire.
Traitor’s Grove
The most notable feature of Kyūden Bayushi is located not in the palace complex itself, but outside the walls and just beyond the plateau: the sinister, haunted copse of trees known as Traitor’s Grove, held by tradition to be the responsibility of the castle’s lord. It was created in the fifth century when Bayushi Tesaguri sold three of the legendary Black Scrolls to the Phoenix Clan; for this betrayal of the Scorpion Clan’s sacred duty to protect the scrolls, he was punished with a ritual that bound his soul into a tree, trapping it in eternal torment. His personal belongings were hung from the tree’s branches, forming a macabre “decoration” that served as a warning to any visitors. Since then, many other traitors have met with the same fate. Although they conceal many other aspects of their clan, the Scorpion make no secret of Traitor’s Grove, preferring to openly display the way they punish disloyalty (though the ritual they use is, of course, utterly hidden).
Tales of the Scorpion
Bayushi’s Labyrinth was designed at the dawn of the Empire by Kaiu himself at Bayushi’s request.
A network of tunnels riddles the plateau beneath Kyūden Bayushi. These tunnels extend throughout the Scorpion lands, linking all the clan’s strongholds together in a secret network.
A mysterious glowing lake lies some-where deep within the tunnels below Kyūden Bayushi. The spirit of Bayushi himself can sometimes be seen floating above the lake.
Anyone who steals personal items from Traitor’s Grove is cursed with ill fortune.
Silk and Shadow Palace, home of the Scorpion Clan’s ruling family, is unusual in that it seems, outwardly, fairly ordinary: a large, conventional nine-story keep located within an expansive and beautiful (but seemingly only lightly defended) walled complex atop a low plateau. In many ways, it resembles the Crane Clan’s famous Kyūden Doji—another large complex atop a height with minimal fortifications—but the comparison is only an outward one. As it is so often with the Scorpion, the beautiful face presented to the rest of the Empire is a lie
The interior of the keep is quite pleasant and comfortable, again very much like a Crane castle. Attentive servants make sure every guest is well cared for and even pampered. However, guests quickly become aware of the unique physical oddity of Kyūden Bayushi: the interior of the keep has no walls save for a few key load-bearing structures. Instead, all the rooms and hall-ways are created from shōji screens and easily moved partitions, allowing the floor layouts to be changed at will. Many guests who spend the night in Kyūden Bayushi awaken to find that they seem to be in a totally different part of the palace than before. The Scorpion sometimes use this trick to put guests in an embarrassing position (for example, finding themselves unable to find the meeting room they used the day before) or simply to make them uneasy and set them off-kilter.
The keep is surrounded and accessed via an elaborate maze that appears to be constructed of trimmed hedges, but these in fact conceal strong walls. Known colloquially as Bayushi’s Labyrinth, the maze incorporates moving pathways and hidden entrances to the network of tunnels beneath the plateau. During times of peace, the Scorpion use the maze as a source of entertainment for their guests, inviting them to test their cunning against it. During warfare, the many traps hidden within the maze are activated, forming a lethal obstacle to anyone unauthorized trying to approach the keep.
Kyūden Bayushi also boasts an expansive garden that fills all of the plateau that is not occupied by the palace complex. The garden centers on a large artificial pond and incorporates its associated streams, with pathways and bridges connecting the various sections. Numerous ancestral shrines are located throughout the garden; curiously, all of them are dedicated to Scorpion who attained attention throughout the Empire.
Traitor’s Grove
The most notable feature of Kyūden Bayushi is located not in the palace complex itself, but outside the walls and just beyond the plateau: the sinister, haunted copse of trees known as Traitor’s Grove, held by tradition to be the responsibility of the castle’s lord. It was created in the fifth century when Bayushi Tesaguri sold three of the legendary Black Scrolls to the Phoenix Clan; for this betrayal of the Scorpion Clan’s sacred duty to protect the scrolls, he was punished with a ritual that bound his soul into a tree, trapping it in eternal torment. His personal belongings were hung from the tree’s branches, forming a macabre “decoration” that served as a warning to any visitors. Since then, many other traitors have met with the same fate. Although they conceal many other aspects of their clan, the Scorpion make no secret of Traitor’s Grove, preferring to openly display the way they punish disloyalty (though the ritual they use is, of course, utterly hidden).
Tales of the Scorpion
Bayushi’s Labyrinth was designed at the dawn of the Empire by Kaiu himself at Bayushi’s request.
A network of tunnels riddles the plateau beneath Kyūden Bayushi. These tunnels extend throughout the Scorpion lands, linking all the clan’s strongholds together in a secret network.
A mysterious glowing lake lies some-where deep within the tunnels below Kyūden Bayushi. The spirit of Bayushi himself can sometimes be seen floating above the lake.
Anyone who steals personal items from Traitor’s Grove is cursed with ill fortune.