Yobanjin Mura

The Scorpion are not the only clan to have secrets.

The Barbarian Village
Yobanjin Mura is an extremely well-kept secret, and a rather scandalous one should its nature ever be revealed. There is no samurai presence within Yobanjin Mura, which is a village only by the most generous interpretation of the term. Its small size and distance from established travel routes has kept it off of any maps, and while the Phoenix are always very careful to pay the appropriate taxes by slipping them in elsewhere in their annual tithes, no one outside the clan has ever been to the village; indeed, even very few even within the clan are aware of its existence. The reason for the village’s secrecy is that many of its inhabitants are of mixed blood – they have Yobanjin blood somewhere in their immediate ancestry.

Although contact between the Empire and the barbarian tribes to the north is rare and officially prohibited, occasional parties do range through the Great Wall of the North and into the northernmost regions of the Empire, leading sometimes to individuals such as those who dwell within Yobanjin Mura. For their part, the half-bloods of Yobanjin Mura feel somewhat blessed that the Phoenix have allowed them their own village far from the scorn of others, where they are left to their own devices. The only thing required of them in return is to maintain a modest level of trade with the occasional Yobanjin visitors. This trade is for relatively minor items that can be used in casting or researching spells.

The Phoenix who administer the village rationalize the legality of Yobanjin Mura to themselves by pointing out that some of the Yobanjin tribes are descended from outcasts who fled the Empire more than one thousand years ago. This means they are not in fact gaijin, and therefore the Imperial edict forbidding unsanctioned trade with gaijin does not apply.

Whether the Emerald Champion would see things the same way is another question, of course.