Shenmen

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Shenmen

(Nation)

Titles

Cursed Land of Spiders and Ghosts

Alignment

Neutral evil

Capital

Yin-Sichasi

Ruler

Lady Lang Loi

Government

Monstrous anarchy

Languages

Aklo, Empyrean, Fey, Tien

Religions

Fumeiyoshi, Lady Nanbyo, Lamashtu, Lao Shu Po, Pharasma

Images of Shenmen

Source: Dragon Empires Gazetteer, pg(s). 37 (1E)
Tian Xia World Guide, pg(s). 192–199 (2E)

The Successor State of Shenmen in central Tian Xia is a land of constant rain, known for being a lawless, monster-haunted region where humans are no longer top of the food chain.

History

During the time of Imperial Lung Wa, Shenmen was used as a dumping ground for unwanted or disgraced politicians and bureaucrats who were simply told to keep the lumber from the Specterwood and the silver from the Gossamer Mountains flowing. Despite being near the core of the empire, Shenmen remained an unimportant backwater, the only thing the empire seemed to care about was that the timber and metal continued to flow. Shenmen, at least in its current form as "the cursed land of spiders and ghosts", began in the aftermath of the fall of Imperial Lung Wa in 4607 AR.

Its fall plunged all of Tian Xia into chaos, and the Lung Wa officials located in Shenmen, suddenly cut off from the succour of the state, resorted to rampant corruption and abuses of authority in order to survive. Yet, without the military support of Lung Wa, they could not control Shenmen and the monsters that lurked in its shadows. Within a year, the so-called witch-queen of the jorogumos, Lady Lang Loi, had taken control in Yin-Sichasi and began exerting greater political control across much of Shenmen.

After its independence in 7220 IC, Linvarre annexed the northernmost part of the Specterwood, though many believe it was an intentional loss due to the lack of a strong reaction by the jorogumo.

Geography

Shenmen is located in the centre of the continent of Tian Xia with the inland Sea of Ghosts forming much of its eastern border. In terms of weather, Shenmen is a land of constant rain, interspersed with occasional storms. The empyrean nation of Tianjing is across the Sea of Ghosts and shares a short land border with Shenmen along Shenmen's north-easternmost reaches. Just north of this, Shenmen also shares a short border with the tengu nation of Kwanlai.

To Shenmen's north is the kingdom of Linvarre, formerly the Taldan colony of Amanandar, while to the west is the exiled samurai nation of Songbai. To the south is Shenmen's largest neighbour, the highly militaristic Successor State of Lingshen.

Shenmen is a land of constant rain, interspersed with occasional storms. While no large scale worship of Hei Feng exists in Shenmen today, a bronze gong with prayers to him written in a forgotten script upon it can be found in the southern face of Stormcaller's Peak within the Gossamer Mountains.

Government

With the fall of Imperial Lung Wa, human rulership of Shenmen fragmented and would rapidly come to an end. Long used as a dumping ground for politicians and bureaucrats who had either broken the law or shamed themselves in some other way, Shenmen's leaders were always lacking but with the total breakdown of order they soon resorted to outright criminal behaviour. Weakened by infighting, they proved easy prey for the jorogumos, a monstrous race of spider women who are said to transform from spiders that grow ancient enough.

Many of the killed Lung Wa bureaucrats later rose as ghosts and continued to enforce the laws of Lung Wa, but in more nightmarish ways and cursed with administrative incompetence, with Governor Chou Mingxia of Sze being the most prominent.

The jorogumos control Shenmen's politics from behind the scenes, though most do not rule its towns and villages directly. Instead, they keep the settlements' leaders enthralled either via magic or the threat of violence. Most such settlements are expected to pay a yearly tithe in men to their jorogumo overlords. The jorogumos are in turn ruled by their witch-queen, Lady Lang Loi.

Lady Jian Kailu, another jorogumo known for her prowess with multiple blades, quietly threatens the current governance with her association with a multitude of spirits within Shenmen. Amongst the numerous bandit chieftains, Yai the Red Mist is notorious for her attacks on the jorogumo's tax caravans and turning her targets into a mist of their own blood.

Jorogumos use various forms of suppression to keep mortals isolated and weak. For example, they outlaw villages from all forms of advanced smithing that could potentially be used to craft cold iron, illiteracy is enforced, villagers not allowed to use coins, mortals require permission to carry money, and roads are deliberately kept unmaintained and unguarded.

Only trusted and often policed mortals, usually publicly marked as also a jorogumo's property by unremovable signet collars, gain the privileges of unrestricted travel, literacy, and increased autonomy then a villager and are the only mortals allowed to interact with foreign merchants and export the nation's lumber and silver.

Jorogumo have a irrational hatred for tengu and kill them on sight. This extends to the worship of their patron god Hei Feng.

Inhabitants

The Specterwood.

See also: Category:Shenmen/Inhabitants

After the fall of Imperial Lung Wa and the chaos that followed, Shenmen became renowned as a land of monsters as they quickly overthrew the crumbling former power structures. Now the nation is known for evil fey in the forests, cursed bandits in the foothills, and all kinds of ghosts and spirits in the waters. The worst are the spider-creatures known as the jorogumos, who now rule the land from their underground capital of Yin-Sichasi and other cavernous homes across the Gossamer Mountains.

Culture

Language

The isolated nature of the villages resulted in unique dialects and many mannerisms considered archaic, even during Lung Wa's reign. Hissing and lisps were later introduced to affectionately mimic the jorogumo rulers' hybrid form's pronunciation difficulties. "Ch" sounds are generally pronounced "Sh", "j" at the beginning of words is pronounced as "zh", and "s" and "x" sounds are drawn out as hisses.

Religion

Long before modern jorogumo rule, spiders were traditionally venerated in Shenmen as wards against pests and evil. Many villages have stone spider guardian beasts motionlessly guarding their entrances for generations.

The main religions of Shenmen include Fumeiyoshi, the Lord of Envy; Lady Nanbyo, the Widow of Suffering; Lao Shu Po, the Old Rat Woman; Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters; and Pharasma, the Mother of Souls.

The worship of Pharasma and veneration for one's ancestors is most common. Fumeiyoshi, Lady Nanbyo, and Lao Shu Po are also worshiped but mostly to beg that they stay their hands, but few will embrace and forward their sinister aspects.

Fearing rebellion from an educated populace, especially involving wizards and clerics, most are kept illiterate. Thus the magical traditions that survived are close-held secrets passed down orally by families, though jorogumo permit a few clerics to operate, mostly Pharasmins.

Since Lady Lang Loi and her jorogumo ilk became rulers, they murder tengu on sight. Organized worship of Hei Feng no longer exists, with his worshippers exiled or killed and temples in disrepair.

Villages near mines will hoard silver dust from to create perimeters believed to repel the wandering undead. Tsukiyo’s Lotus, grown in retention ponds and fish pools, is also believed its scent to rebel undead

Bandits

Banditry plays a contradictory roles in the rural culture of Shenmen. The cruel and manipulative rule of jorogumos forces villages to be fiercely self-sufficient. Those who wish to live without fear and beyond their settlement's bamboo walls take up banditry. While generally feared and despised by commoners, they are also ambiguously seen as heroic rebels who live outside of jorogumo control, tomb robbers who do not fear the ghostly bureaucrats, or people who can freely wander Shenmen.

Bandits prey upon the vulnerable as in other places, and some villages might have to put down road-side brigands who were once their former neighbors. Bandits are likewise often indifferent to the plight of villagers, although desperate villagers might also turn to them for help as couriers, monster slayers, or suppliers of weapons deemed contraband by jorogumos.

Yai the Red Mist is a infamous exemplar of this contradiction. Folk hero and bogeyman, her band mercilessly waylays jorogumo tax caravans while paying and protecting villages that treat her group well.

Seasons

Although so time of year is safe, the increasing day length of the warming seasons, is the safer time to works as the spectral undead are dislike the sun. Spring Equinox is the happiest night celebration in Shenmen. Summer's long day hours is the safest to work in the forests and be on the roads but for the same reason for increase bandit activity. In Autumn, villages prepare for winter and increase undead activity, using pickling and fermentation to preserve food as the damp climate is impractical for drying and smoking and large amount of salt is difficult to come by. Also a time when villages enlist traveling shamans, exorcists and permitted clerics to ward of undead, especially during the autumn equinox they call the First Long Night were they double check their stock piles and wards against the undead. Winter is when the jorogumo collect their annual tithes, that typically payed in silver, food, timber, or handsome young men. Some villages might attempt avoid paying with their own people by capturing travers as a necessary evil, and some parents may go as far temporarily disfigure their own children, being overlooked from the spider women's desires or jealousy, and hide the injuries with winter scarves until they heal in spring.

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.