Sanmatsu-mura(literally mountain pine village) is, as the name suggests, a little farming village nested between two ancient mountains. It is also your home, for one reason or another.
Generally life in Sanmatsu-mura is as peaceful as the scenery, except for the odd bandit raid or warring faction, but there's been little even of those occurrences lately. The
daimyo that your village belongs to seems to have negotiated a satisfactory peace agreement with his neighbours, which means that for the last few years the samurai haven't been to battle, but have instead stayed in town watching their farms and deepening their appreciation of life and Bushido, this in turn means that bandits were apprehensive to strike, what with all the samurai about.
The news about the unusual tranquillity that your region benefits from has spread though, so over the months and years a number of "interesting" characters seem to have decided to either visit or even settle into your daimyo's region, including your little village. Thus Sanmatsu-mura has become quite a diverse place, a mix of all different social classes, from the occasional thieves, to only slightly more respectable travelling merchants, to the disgraced
ronins, warriors with no master, to the simple yet honourable peasants, to the ascetic monks(some of them even have a settlement nearby) and, of course, the noble samurai.
Despite this unusual diversity, everyone seemed to manage to stay out of everyone else's way(and especially out of the samurai's way, of course), and your little village continued to coexist peacefully.
Peacefully, that is, until today, when the whole village is awaken by a shriek of terror. One of the children of a local samurai was sent to fetch water, when he didn't promptly return his mother sent a servant to scold him. The servant however could only shriek in horror as she found the boy dead near the fountain. One slash is all it took.
The sword had hit him on the left side of the neck just below the chin and had cut transversally through his young body like through butter, eventually exiting just below his right armpit, the boy's head and right arm now lay detached from his body, mixing their blood with the dirt. This doesn't look like the work of bandits.
The child's family collects him and starts to prepare for the funerary customs, meanwhile, the village head samurai, he who is ultimately responsible for the welfare of Sanmatsu-mura, orders everyone else to gather in the village centre to try to uncover the truth. Soon everyone arrives and ritualistically confirms their attendance of the special meeting. A few short laughs are heard when Ictorizu Sullimoto manages to pronounce his name wrong, obviously he has had a bit too much sake the night before, but the grave circumstances soon return to everyone's minds.
Day 1, go:
Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 11:55 am
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