Anamurumon
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Anamurumon is a warlord who sought the throne of Minkai during his mortal life and was transformed into a wind yai oni after death. He is the leader of the oni coalition known as the Five Storms, the grandfather and mastermind behind the rise to power of Soto Takahiro, better known as the Jade Regent.1
Appearance
In his human guise, Anamurumon publicly acts as a middle-aged, imperial magistrate, and close advisor to the Jade Regent.1
History
Anamurumon was born in 4219 AR and lived his childhood among the brigands of northern Minkai. The charismatic warlord rose to power during the reign of Emperor Shojinawa Kenshiro and sought to claim the Jade Throne of Minkai for himself, despite his low birth and lack of divine mandate granted by the goddess Shizuru. His bandits sacked several cities, abducted, and ransomed diplomats, and killed many samurai, terrorising the entire nation. Anamurumon eventually laid siege to the capital Kasai and forced the emperor to sally forth to face him off in combat. Anamurumon defeated and killed the emperor, but in his dying breath Kenshiro called upon the Shojinawa Seal to rip the soul of his killer from his body. Without their leader, Anamurumon's forces were routed by the emperor's reinforcements.2
Cast into the Great Beyond, Anamurumon appealed to Fumeiyoshi, god of envy and patron of the oni. Jealous of Shizuru, Fumeiyoshi answered Anamurumon's plea by returning him to the Universe as a wind yai. His transformation bound Anamurumon to the Laws of Golden Perfection, which prevents the oni from taking direct action to seize the mortal world, ensuring that Anamurumon could never claim the Jade Throne for himself.2
Whenever he manifested in the Universe, Anamurumon was trapped in the House of Withered Blossoms in the Forest of Spirits, the prison of a group of oni who only grudgingly accepted him in their midst. Still driven by his ambitions, Anamurumon spent four centuries planning an escape from the House of Withered Blossoms, manoeuvring for power among the oni imprisoned there and killing all opposition.2
Anamurumon's oni minions became known as the Five Storms and eventually broke free of the House of Withered Blossoms in 4651 AR. He instructed them to infiltrate every corner of Minkan society and eradicate the five imperial families, paving the way for their takeover. Meanwhile, Anamurumon correctly deemed that oni-spawn cambions3 would fall outside the Laws of Golden Perfection, and started to sire half-fiend children and cambion grandchildren to further his goal of seizing the Jade Throne through subterfuge. The more human-like half-fiends and cambions were sent to infiltrate the emperor's inner circle while taking pains to hide their cambion features, while the monstrous ones were tasked with leading bands of brigands to occupy the emperor.2
Anamurumon was eventually rewarded with the birth of Soto Takahiro, a cambion grandson capable of passing as human. He trained the boy from birth to usurp the Jade Throne in his place, starting with secretly poisoning his mother in childbirth so Takahiro would have no other family member to bond with other than himself. At a young age, at Anamurumon's urging, Takahiro joined a samurai order devoted to the protection of the Higashiyama clan, and became the bodyguard of Shigure, the youngest child of the then-Emperor. Anamurumon secretly arranged the deaths of Shigure's older siblings, leaving him as the heir.12
In 4708 AR, Shigure's father died and he ascended to the throne, but his reign lasted for a mere week before Takahiro assassinated him, proclaimed himself the Jade Regent and named Anamurumon his chief magistrate, all according to his plan. Meanwhile, the Five Storms spread stories that the emperor had gone into hiding while the unnamed threat against his life remained.2
References
For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 . “The Empty Throne” in The Empty Throne, 50–51. Paizo Inc., 2012
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 . “The Empty Throne” in The Empty Throne, 7–8. Paizo Inc., 2012
- ↑ Paizo referred to cambion planar scions as tieflings until the publication of Player Core. These cambions are unrelated to the type of demon with the same name.
