JNHRO Guide to Yamainutaira 5
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Lord K
Spoiler: Part 5
Spoiler
"A walk through Omonohata with the Matangi-Ken sisters, Hotene and Ayai."
Spoiler
Omonohata - The Lord's Fields
And so we arrive at the last, but still rather vast, area of Yamainutaira to be covered in this guide. Unfortunately, and not to be disingenuous to Omonohata, but there isn't actually a lot there. For all it's size, the predominantly muggle area actually has even fewer people living within it's borders than Matangi-Ken no Shinrin (at least when counting yokai).
Mostly, this is due to it's history. Originally utilized as a place for hunting, after repeated issues with bandits hiding out in the woods, and a need for more farmland to feed the growing town in the early 1500s, over the course of the next 200 years, the woods of Omonohata was incrementally cleared back. After Daimaru the Builder was proclaimed shugo, for centuries the wide expanses of Omonohata were then the personal fields of the Hokubu Main Family. This eventually lead to the source of Omonohata's other claim to fame, one it still has to this day. Aside from Okamimamotte Iriguchi which only has a few estates that produce or utilize magical stock, Omonohata ins the heart of non-magical livestock farming in Yamainutaira.
Since the first human settlers began to arrive in the 1490s, Omonohata has played host to cattle, primarily due to the fact that the Inuogawa Stream and gully provide a natural barrier dividing the area from the main growing fields of Noukamura and Inunojotaira. Once the Hokubu had exclusive land rights to the area, the Main Family continued the previous cattle farming ventures that were on going at the time, although primarily the bovines were utilized for labor assistance and as pack animals, rather than as sources of meat or dairy product. That's not to say the peoples of Yamainutaira were adverse to beef, with older cows and steers ending up in cooking pots and on barbecues far more regularly than in less carnivorous or non-magical communities.
Eventually however, the majority of the land that was cleared was utilized for crops, just as tended to happen else where, due to the more efficient land usage one could get by rotating multiple crops of vegetables through a field, in the same time it would take to raise just one steer for slaughter. It is a trend that even effects the layout of the modern Omonohata today.
These days, Omonohata can generally be divided into two areas. The smaller portion at the souther end by Matangi no Shinrin, actually does have a few magical properties, though most of what goes on is just various forms of crop farming. The larger and more open northern end, is the almost entirely muggle area most people think of when they say Omonohata. The majority of it is vegetable plots, but scattered about the fields are a few different ranches and dairy farms, as well as one place that also does free range chickens and eggs. However, this is definitely a landscape of the "Industrial" farm, unlike the smaller and often "family" or household farms in Noukamura and Inunojotaira, or the old estates of Okamimamotte Iriguchi and the Western Approach Road. Agriculture in the modern Omonohata is often run like a company or brand, and while many properties are still locally owned and operated, like Doukouzan, it is now a realm of numbers, statistics, and science, as much as it is a labor of heart and passion.
For these reasons, along with how ever present muggles are in northern Omonohata, though many jobs available in the area are generally accessible to those without qualifications, it is advised that only those familiar with basic muggle farming ideas, or concepts that would have been introduced at a muggle high school education level, should apply for positions on the larger non-magical farms and ranches.
Historical Trivia: No one's actually certain when or why the area is called Omonohata. At the time it first began to be cleared and developed by Shoumaru the Little and Daimaru the Builder, it was simply called the "Serrow Wood" for the small Serrow population that could be found in it. Later, the area was more commonly known as the "Far Field" or the "Shirakawa Ridge". Omonohata only really seems to have entered the common vernacular and begun appearing on maps in the late 1800s, when land reforms broke up many of the great clan holdings across Japan, including the Hokubu estates, meaning that in the time it first started to be called the "Lord's Field", it didn't (directly) belong to the Hokubu anymore.
Spoiler
"D-Farm, Yamainutaira's local brand for muggle milk and beef products. While not heavily advertised, they also do small, limited runs of artisanal cheeses - D-farm Store"
Please Do Not Eat the Cattle
Omonohata's history with cattle is a very long and weird one.
Many of Ryoshimaru the Hunter's more famous exploits, were often born of incidents involving attacks on local livestock. The entire saga of his slaying of Maoukuma the Demon Bear, in fact revolved around the fact that Maoukuma had been killing and eating local cattle, beasts that were not just valuable food resource for the community, but also walking commodities. Cattle could help till fields and be roped into busy work or manual transport labor that stronger but still more intelligent yokai would be wasted or, or see as a slight to their pride and status, and even when they did die or were slaughtered, they were walking repositories of more than just meat. Leather, fur, horns, bone, even the hoofs and dried gut-tracts could be re-purposed for various mundane uses, never mind the magical ones available as well.
Tsukuyomaru the Negotiator's title actually originates from the fact that he was one of the first to begin politically stabilizing the relationships with many of the Hokubu-Setto-Matangi-Ken Alliance's previous foes in the region, in particular, the Onikuma clans of Rokusensawa with whom the Setto and Matangi-Ken had once had especially bitter pasts with. Part of how he often brought off many of Yamainutaira's historic foes, or garnered allies to politically isolate the ones he could not wile, befriend, bribe, of subtly intimidate, was by gifting cattle, often with an accompanying cargo of copper, woods and sometimes even gold on the occasions a vein was accessed in Tani-no-Su. A display of not just the wealth and power of Yamainutaira, but also a subtle hint of what could be gained from working with the Hokubu and their allies, rather than being crushed standing against them.
During the reign of Shioriko of the Metered Justice, one of the more famous disputes she once presided and made a ruling over, was string of back and forth revenge killings between two clans of ezo wolves and humans, which all stemmed from the fact that the one of the human men had supposedly killed a pair of the wolves' oxen, which left them without any animals capable of working their plows that season. And thus started a chain of escalating arguments, then fights, and eventually murders, which are now memorialized in a number of screen paintings by Hokubu Fumiko, and even a locally popular kabuki comedy.
It is recorded in one of Ezomaru the Marquis of the Northern Wolves' dairies, that in 1834, there was an incident involving a number of onmouji and Hokubu who were experimenting with summoning rituals and portals in the hopes of eventually illicitly importing American beef and dairy breeds, in order to crossbreed and increase the productivity of their ranches. Only through the superior tactics and usage of modern firearms technology by the Hokubu town garrison to supplement it's core of battlemages and swordwolves, were the polearm wielding bovines and their king driven back to whatever diabolical realm they came from, and the portal shut.
Today, while cattle aren't the walking tractors and regent factories they once were, and no longer have the kind of value that will get you murdered by your neighbor if you accidentally bump one, or attacked by hell-cows resulting from somebody's breeding import efforts gone awry, cattle farming still has it's place and role in modern Yamainutaira.
In a world where many of the major dairy and cheese producing regions of the world are now separated from Japan by the costs of importing via convoys, domestic dairy farming is essentially a license to print money, and in this, Yamainutaira has lucked out. Not only does it have a wide open expanse in the form of many of it's communities, but Omonohata in particular, has a long and proud preexisting history of cattle farming and dairy production, no matter how small it is compared to the other major income earners of the township.
Historical Trivia: In order of profit, Yamainutaira's five major exports are;
1 - Treated Building Timber
2 - Apples
3 - Refined Copper
4 - Cabbages
5 - HOWLING Juice
If broken down into the categories of Raw Food Produce and Raw Lumber, you get;
1 - Apples
2 - Cabbages
3 - Plums
4 - Potatos
5 - Leeks
1 - Jezo Spruce
2 - Hinoki Cypress
3 - Sawara Cypress
4 - Sakhalin Fir
Spoiler
"Yours truly and Daishi Mori, members of the Yamainutaira War Migrant Support Program public outreach team - Hokubu Kariudoko"
Assorted Facts and Trivia
And so we reach the end of our guide. But just before we do end though, we thought we'd throw in a few final interesting factoids and tidbits that didn't really feel right or too random to insert among the other articles. So, here are twelve fun bits of trivia and suggestions to wrap up on.
1 - No one actually knows why Shoumaru the Little left Honshu. Was it in exile and disgrace? Or to seek his own fame and fortune out of frustration? It is impossible to truly be sure. The reason for this, is that upon the closing of the Onin War, it seems that either Shoumaru the Little's original master, or someone once close to him who's machinations were responsible for whatever impetus was behind the Okami's leaving in the first place, was then magically unpersonned from existence and memory. Most likely this was either as punishment for some crime, or by a rival who saw no need or advantage to recall Shoumaru the Little from his new home in the north.
2 - This loss of history, past and memory, is also the one of the initial reasons behind Shoumaru the Little's meticulous gathering of books and knowledge in his later years. Organizing and preserving what literary resources he had used in his years of building Yamainutaira, that could be useful for his son, Daimaru the Builder, he also invested vast amounts of his time in tracking down and saving the remaining records of his past, genealogy, and the Hokubu's history in Honshu. Daimaru the Builder later expanded upon this collection of knowledge with many resources of his own, as did Sanmaru of the 100 Duels, who added many works gained as loot and bestowed as gifts for his service during the closing years of the Sengoku Period. When Ryoshimaru the Hunter then rebuilt Santsume as a Shoen Manor rather than a fortress after the 1637 fire, part of it's construction was dedicated to what would become the current Clan Library. A magically expanded section of the compound, that also finalized the current tradition of successors placing more personal works, books and artifacts into wings tied to the previous Clan Heads that introduced or were associated with them.
3 - There is a system of tunnels running beneath Kabeoka and Noukamura, connecting the original cores of the two neighborhoods together, and with a number of concealed and illusioned entrances and exits just beyond the medieval boundaries of the two areas. While accessible to the modern magical public, the small size and difficulty in finding many of these entrances, along with the time period for their creation seems to suggest a much more covert history for the tunnel system, rather than one of travel or goods transport. The fact that all the tunnels leading off in the direction of Okamiryosen are destroyed or caved in, has lead many to believe that they were originally escape routes and hidden passages for the noble clans in the time of Daimaru the Builder. Concealed ways to travel about should portions of the outer town fall, or bring supplies to the main fortress, in the event of a siege which Santsume actually never had to face. Most likely, the Okamiryosen and Santsume tunnels were then closed up by a later Hokubu Clan head, to remove any potentially unguarded or unnecessary avenues of entrance to the later Shoen. Ironically, this move which was likely motivated by a fear of break ins or assassins, seems to have happened under the reign Tsukuyomaru the Negotiator, who would later be assassinated by his brother, but while on a hunting trip, rather than at Santsume.
4 - Before taking the "Nine Clan Heads Challenge" at the Golden Ofuda, one must first sign a wavier, and complete the challenge while using a disguise or transformation that can fit through the doorway of the building. To date, only five people have completed it, with those among the defeated including beings as big as Oni, Taka Nyudo, Uwabami, and even a Mizuchi failing to conquer the Challenge.
5 - Feeling hungry or peckish, and in the mood for something less ridiculous than the Nine Clan Heads Challenge, while still at street level? Try the Wolf Burger, a local variation of the Sasebo Burger found at many casual restaurants and eateries in town. Everyone has their own variations and takes, but the common principle of the burger is to use as many ingredients as possible for the general vicinity of Yamainutaira or Kawakami Sub-Prefecture. The burger itself normally takes the form or some variation of lightly toasted buns, a huge beef patty or shredded wild pork (or more regularly, both together), similarly wild bacon, cheese, a fried egg, fried onion, tomato slices, lettuce, a sweet relish made of local fruit and vegetables, and finally condiments.
6 - In Noukamura there is an old well, where if you weigh a bag of fruit down and toss it into the water, eventually when you pull it up, the fruit will be gone. In Kabeoka menwhle, there is a similar well where the fruit thrown into the depths of the first, will then float up from the bottom of the second when no one is looking. No one is actually sure why the well only works with non-magical fruit, and only in this direction. This also once caused an incident, when a recently installed security camera in a nearby parking lot caused the well to become "backlogged" for three months, only for everything to come out at once, the first time the camera was turned off for maintenance.
7 - Do you prefer your fare meatier and fresher? Or are you looking for a job, and find the idea of something that incorporates both herbology and working with animals an appealing occupation? Or maybe you're just looking for some cheap wool? Well, you can find all three of those things at Kaneki Estate in Okamimamotte Iriguchi, on the Western Approach Road. There, you'll find the Kaneki Barometz-Lamb Plantation. From Spring to Autumn, you can get fresh off the stalk Lamb of Tartary, while wool can usually be brought at wholesalers prices all year round. If you don't mind the cold, they're also always hiring people to melt the snow and hand feed the Barometz during winter when the grass dies down.
Spoiler
"The Cover Art for J-Wrock band, Three Wolf Knights' 2006 breakout album "Karma and Beauty in Negative Places" - Wrock Recording Japan"
8 - Best selling J-Wrock band, Three Wolf Knights, actually hail from Yamainutaira. Often their backing crew and touring team are made up fellow musically inclined yokai and humans from around Kamikawa District, and they have used numerous locations throughout Yamainutaira township for many of their vinyl artworks, album covers and promotional materials over the last ten years. Chronologically;
-- The abanonded cafe on the cover of 2003's "Giri Choco Shaped Box" was at the time, an empty building on a side street of Kabeoka.
-- The photo for 2006's "Karma and Beauty in Negative Places", which unintentionally resonated with so many in the aftermath of Blood Week and the early months of the war, despite being a yokai focused album largely written before the conflict, was taken outside one of the first apparment block projects that would become the testbed for the rest of Settokanshiba.
-- The cover art for 2008's Single, "Minutes Past Midnight", was captured in the ruins of an old smelter in Tani-no-Su
-- The album it belonged to, 2008's "Theoretical Hybrid", was taken with the help of a local friend of Hanyou descent.
-- The three 2010 singles "A Possesion You Don't Want Out", "London Beckoned", and "Songs Written By Machines" respectively depict a kitsune in one of the band's original bar hangouts in Noukamura, the view down the Western Approach Road in Okamimamotte Iriguchi, and the interior of one of the modern smelter buildings in the Doukouzan Copper Extraction and Refinery Facility.
-- The album cover for 2010's "21st Century Nimrods" was taken in Matangi-Ken no Shinrin, with a few Matangi-Ken friends playing the roles of the traditional hunters and the lonely rifleman.
-- The promotional art for their 2011 "KamiKamiKami" tour, is of a real clearing of standing stones on Matangi-Ken property.
-- The locations on the cover art of the two 2012 Singles, "This Ain't Fun" and "Still My Exception" are from Yamainutaira Junior High, and the grounds of Hokubu-no-Okami Shokonsha Yashiro.
-- And the cover of their latest album, 2013's "This is Love, War, Nightmares and Dreams", includes a drawn rendition of the Retaruseta Kamuy's Lonely Hearts Club Bar in Noukamura, where they wrote and recorded parts of the album.
9 - In Settoshugyoba there is a irohamomiji tree that is locally known as the Red Tree of Fate. So the tale goes, lovers who write each other's names on the trunk in red ink shall always eventually return to each other, so long as their names remain on the tree. This is actually an entirely bogus myth of muggle origin, likely inspired by a combination of the western "names carved into a tree" trope, and the fact that the kanji of "Hokubu Riichimaru and Setto Kana - 1945" can be seen chiseled into the bark of the tree. Still, many couples do so anyway, if only for the gesture and romance factor. More recently it has also become a trend to for couples that have brushed or painted on each other's names, to also re-ink the carved kanji left by Hokubu Riichimaru and Setto Kana at the same time.
10 - Yamainutaira's economy is not a closed system. Many of the town's industries not only rely on trade and sales to other parts of Japan, but also rely on other parts of Kamikawa District for their raw materials, furthering the benefits of their presence to the provincial economy as well. Almost 30% of the lumber Yamainutaira Luber Mill processes comes from outside the township's borders, as does 50% of the various fruits used by HOWLING Juice products, while 45% of the copper slag that Doukouzan Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility reprocesses, comes from a pair of decommissioned mines that no longer have the local workforce or facilities to reprocess the slag themselves. About 25% to 30% of the combined workforce from all three operations, technically live outside Yamainutaira's borders, usually in the township of Kamikawa itself, down in the valley on the otherside of Okamiryosen.
11 - Wondering what the thing against bears many of the local muggles seem to occasionally have is? Thankfully, those of ursine origin don't actually have anything to worry about. They don't actually dislike bears, they just hate the Junior High Bears Baseball Team of Tomamae, in Rumoi Sub-prefecture. The origin of this rivalry actually stems all the way back to ancient times, when the Onikuma clans of Rokusensawa first drove the Ezo Wolves of the Setto Clan into the mountains and raided the den-homes of the Matangi-Ken. The arrival of the Hokubu did little to change this ancient feud, which for much of the 1500s and 1600s, actually intensified due to the gradual shift in power that took place. While the Onikuma of Rokusensawa ever weakened from their constant warring, the alliance of the Hokubu, Setto and Matangi-Ken eventually allowed the three clans to not just outnumber, but also out-innovate, and eventually out politically out-maneuver the Rokusensawa. Right up until the Meiji Restoration, there existed a rivalry that even permeated down into the muggle populace between the two towns. One that has ironically, actually outlasted most of the yokai that initially perpetuated it. While the changing nature of society has caused most of the younger generations of bears, wolves and dogs to not really feel beholden to the historic feud out of necessity and perspective, the rivalry was so much a part of each locales identity that it persisted past the Statute of Secrecy and initial obliviations. Now days though, it takes the form of a fiercely competitive sporting and academics rivalry. Even in sports and competitions where Yamainutaira or Kamikawa Sub-prefecture isn't up against Tomamae or Rumoi Sub-prefecture, you can usually expect the locals to be cheering on the opposite team simply on principle.
12 - Want to get some wheels to get around? Well, firstly you're going to need to learn how to drive. For those with an understanding and magical perspective, who are experienced with teaching those unfamiliar with muggle motor vehicles, try contacting the A1 Automotive Driving School in Noukamura. For those more interested in getting around by bus or train, they can also help set up and instruct in the matters of acquiring muggle public transport cards, and making sense of muggle train and bus schedules.
Spoiler
"Thanks for reading and and hopefully this guide has proven helpful in getting to know just a little bit more about our town, and how we hope to lend a hand whenever it is needed. From all of us on the team with the Yamainutaira War Migrant Support Program and Yamainutaira Town Council, we wish you the best of luck and good fortune with whatever comes next. - Hokubu Kariudoko"
Has this guide proven helpful? Do you have anything you feel we should suggest, add or change? Or are you somebody that just wants to help out? Well, to set up a meeting, or owl and mail in your suggestions, you can contact us at;
Yamainutaira War Migrant Support Program
Kabeoka Town Hall,
165 Chouyakuba Road, Kabeoka,
Yamainutaira, Kamikawa District
Hokkaido
Spoiler: Part 5
Spoiler
"A walk through Omonohata with the Matangi-Ken sisters, Hotene and Ayai."
Spoiler
Omonohata - The Lord's Fields
And so we arrive at the last, but still rather vast, area of Yamainutaira to be covered in this guide. Unfortunately, and not to be disingenuous to Omonohata, but there isn't actually a lot there. For all it's size, the predominantly muggle area actually has even fewer people living within it's borders than Matangi-Ken no Shinrin (at least when counting yokai).
Mostly, this is due to it's history. Originally utilized as a place for hunting, after repeated issues with bandits hiding out in the woods, and a need for more farmland to feed the growing town in the early 1500s, over the course of the next 200 years, the woods of Omonohata was incrementally cleared back. After Daimaru the Builder was proclaimed shugo, for centuries the wide expanses of Omonohata were then the personal fields of the Hokubu Main Family. This eventually lead to the source of Omonohata's other claim to fame, one it still has to this day. Aside from Okamimamotte Iriguchi which only has a few estates that produce or utilize magical stock, Omonohata ins the heart of non-magical livestock farming in Yamainutaira.
Since the first human settlers began to arrive in the 1490s, Omonohata has played host to cattle, primarily due to the fact that the Inuogawa Stream and gully provide a natural barrier dividing the area from the main growing fields of Noukamura and Inunojotaira. Once the Hokubu had exclusive land rights to the area, the Main Family continued the previous cattle farming ventures that were on going at the time, although primarily the bovines were utilized for labor assistance and as pack animals, rather than as sources of meat or dairy product. That's not to say the peoples of Yamainutaira were adverse to beef, with older cows and steers ending up in cooking pots and on barbecues far more regularly than in less carnivorous or non-magical communities.
Eventually however, the majority of the land that was cleared was utilized for crops, just as tended to happen else where, due to the more efficient land usage one could get by rotating multiple crops of vegetables through a field, in the same time it would take to raise just one steer for slaughter. It is a trend that even effects the layout of the modern Omonohata today.
These days, Omonohata can generally be divided into two areas. The smaller portion at the souther end by Matangi no Shinrin, actually does have a few magical properties, though most of what goes on is just various forms of crop farming. The larger and more open northern end, is the almost entirely muggle area most people think of when they say Omonohata. The majority of it is vegetable plots, but scattered about the fields are a few different ranches and dairy farms, as well as one place that also does free range chickens and eggs. However, this is definitely a landscape of the "Industrial" farm, unlike the smaller and often "family" or household farms in Noukamura and Inunojotaira, or the old estates of Okamimamotte Iriguchi and the Western Approach Road. Agriculture in the modern Omonohata is often run like a company or brand, and while many properties are still locally owned and operated, like Doukouzan, it is now a realm of numbers, statistics, and science, as much as it is a labor of heart and passion.
For these reasons, along with how ever present muggles are in northern Omonohata, though many jobs available in the area are generally accessible to those without qualifications, it is advised that only those familiar with basic muggle farming ideas, or concepts that would have been introduced at a muggle high school education level, should apply for positions on the larger non-magical farms and ranches.
Historical Trivia: No one's actually certain when or why the area is called Omonohata. At the time it first began to be cleared and developed by Shoumaru the Little and Daimaru the Builder, it was simply called the "Serrow Wood" for the small Serrow population that could be found in it. Later, the area was more commonly known as the "Far Field" or the "Shirakawa Ridge". Omonohata only really seems to have entered the common vernacular and begun appearing on maps in the late 1800s, when land reforms broke up many of the great clan holdings across Japan, including the Hokubu estates, meaning that in the time it first started to be called the "Lord's Field", it didn't (directly) belong to the Hokubu anymore.
Spoiler
"D-Farm, Yamainutaira's local brand for muggle milk and beef products. While not heavily advertised, they also do small, limited runs of artisanal cheeses - D-farm Store"
Please Do Not Eat the Cattle
Omonohata's history with cattle is a very long and weird one.
Many of Ryoshimaru the Hunter's more famous exploits, were often born of incidents involving attacks on local livestock. The entire saga of his slaying of Maoukuma the Demon Bear, in fact revolved around the fact that Maoukuma had been killing and eating local cattle, beasts that were not just valuable food resource for the community, but also walking commodities. Cattle could help till fields and be roped into busy work or manual transport labor that stronger but still more intelligent yokai would be wasted or, or see as a slight to their pride and status, and even when they did die or were slaughtered, they were walking repositories of more than just meat. Leather, fur, horns, bone, even the hoofs and dried gut-tracts could be re-purposed for various mundane uses, never mind the magical ones available as well.
Tsukuyomaru the Negotiator's title actually originates from the fact that he was one of the first to begin politically stabilizing the relationships with many of the Hokubu-Setto-Matangi-Ken Alliance's previous foes in the region, in particular, the Onikuma clans of Rokusensawa with whom the Setto and Matangi-Ken had once had especially bitter pasts with. Part of how he often brought off many of Yamainutaira's historic foes, or garnered allies to politically isolate the ones he could not wile, befriend, bribe, of subtly intimidate, was by gifting cattle, often with an accompanying cargo of copper, woods and sometimes even gold on the occasions a vein was accessed in Tani-no-Su. A display of not just the wealth and power of Yamainutaira, but also a subtle hint of what could be gained from working with the Hokubu and their allies, rather than being crushed standing against them.
During the reign of Shioriko of the Metered Justice, one of the more famous disputes she once presided and made a ruling over, was string of back and forth revenge killings between two clans of ezo wolves and humans, which all stemmed from the fact that the one of the human men had supposedly killed a pair of the wolves' oxen, which left them without any animals capable of working their plows that season. And thus started a chain of escalating arguments, then fights, and eventually murders, which are now memorialized in a number of screen paintings by Hokubu Fumiko, and even a locally popular kabuki comedy.
It is recorded in one of Ezomaru the Marquis of the Northern Wolves' dairies, that in 1834, there was an incident involving a number of onmouji and Hokubu who were experimenting with summoning rituals and portals in the hopes of eventually illicitly importing American beef and dairy breeds, in order to crossbreed and increase the productivity of their ranches. Only through the superior tactics and usage of modern firearms technology by the Hokubu town garrison to supplement it's core of battlemages and swordwolves, were the polearm wielding bovines and their king driven back to whatever diabolical realm they came from, and the portal shut.
Today, while cattle aren't the walking tractors and regent factories they once were, and no longer have the kind of value that will get you murdered by your neighbor if you accidentally bump one, or attacked by hell-cows resulting from somebody's breeding import efforts gone awry, cattle farming still has it's place and role in modern Yamainutaira.
In a world where many of the major dairy and cheese producing regions of the world are now separated from Japan by the costs of importing via convoys, domestic dairy farming is essentially a license to print money, and in this, Yamainutaira has lucked out. Not only does it have a wide open expanse in the form of many of it's communities, but Omonohata in particular, has a long and proud preexisting history of cattle farming and dairy production, no matter how small it is compared to the other major income earners of the township.
Historical Trivia: In order of profit, Yamainutaira's five major exports are;
1 - Treated Building Timber
2 - Apples
3 - Refined Copper
4 - Cabbages
5 - HOWLING Juice
If broken down into the categories of Raw Food Produce and Raw Lumber, you get;
1 - Apples
2 - Cabbages
3 - Plums
4 - Potatos
5 - Leeks
1 - Jezo Spruce
2 - Hinoki Cypress
3 - Sawara Cypress
4 - Sakhalin Fir
Spoiler
"Yours truly and Daishi Mori, members of the Yamainutaira War Migrant Support Program public outreach team - Hokubu Kariudoko"
Assorted Facts and Trivia
And so we reach the end of our guide. But just before we do end though, we thought we'd throw in a few final interesting factoids and tidbits that didn't really feel right or too random to insert among the other articles. So, here are twelve fun bits of trivia and suggestions to wrap up on.
1 - No one actually knows why Shoumaru the Little left Honshu. Was it in exile and disgrace? Or to seek his own fame and fortune out of frustration? It is impossible to truly be sure. The reason for this, is that upon the closing of the Onin War, it seems that either Shoumaru the Little's original master, or someone once close to him who's machinations were responsible for whatever impetus was behind the Okami's leaving in the first place, was then magically unpersonned from existence and memory. Most likely this was either as punishment for some crime, or by a rival who saw no need or advantage to recall Shoumaru the Little from his new home in the north.
2 - This loss of history, past and memory, is also the one of the initial reasons behind Shoumaru the Little's meticulous gathering of books and knowledge in his later years. Organizing and preserving what literary resources he had used in his years of building Yamainutaira, that could be useful for his son, Daimaru the Builder, he also invested vast amounts of his time in tracking down and saving the remaining records of his past, genealogy, and the Hokubu's history in Honshu. Daimaru the Builder later expanded upon this collection of knowledge with many resources of his own, as did Sanmaru of the 100 Duels, who added many works gained as loot and bestowed as gifts for his service during the closing years of the Sengoku Period. When Ryoshimaru the Hunter then rebuilt Santsume as a Shoen Manor rather than a fortress after the 1637 fire, part of it's construction was dedicated to what would become the current Clan Library. A magically expanded section of the compound, that also finalized the current tradition of successors placing more personal works, books and artifacts into wings tied to the previous Clan Heads that introduced or were associated with them.
3 - There is a system of tunnels running beneath Kabeoka and Noukamura, connecting the original cores of the two neighborhoods together, and with a number of concealed and illusioned entrances and exits just beyond the medieval boundaries of the two areas. While accessible to the modern magical public, the small size and difficulty in finding many of these entrances, along with the time period for their creation seems to suggest a much more covert history for the tunnel system, rather than one of travel or goods transport. The fact that all the tunnels leading off in the direction of Okamiryosen are destroyed or caved in, has lead many to believe that they were originally escape routes and hidden passages for the noble clans in the time of Daimaru the Builder. Concealed ways to travel about should portions of the outer town fall, or bring supplies to the main fortress, in the event of a siege which Santsume actually never had to face. Most likely, the Okamiryosen and Santsume tunnels were then closed up by a later Hokubu Clan head, to remove any potentially unguarded or unnecessary avenues of entrance to the later Shoen. Ironically, this move which was likely motivated by a fear of break ins or assassins, seems to have happened under the reign Tsukuyomaru the Negotiator, who would later be assassinated by his brother, but while on a hunting trip, rather than at Santsume.
4 - Before taking the "Nine Clan Heads Challenge" at the Golden Ofuda, one must first sign a wavier, and complete the challenge while using a disguise or transformation that can fit through the doorway of the building. To date, only five people have completed it, with those among the defeated including beings as big as Oni, Taka Nyudo, Uwabami, and even a Mizuchi failing to conquer the Challenge.
5 - Feeling hungry or peckish, and in the mood for something less ridiculous than the Nine Clan Heads Challenge, while still at street level? Try the Wolf Burger, a local variation of the Sasebo Burger found at many casual restaurants and eateries in town. Everyone has their own variations and takes, but the common principle of the burger is to use as many ingredients as possible for the general vicinity of Yamainutaira or Kawakami Sub-Prefecture. The burger itself normally takes the form or some variation of lightly toasted buns, a huge beef patty or shredded wild pork (or more regularly, both together), similarly wild bacon, cheese, a fried egg, fried onion, tomato slices, lettuce, a sweet relish made of local fruit and vegetables, and finally condiments.
6 - In Noukamura there is an old well, where if you weigh a bag of fruit down and toss it into the water, eventually when you pull it up, the fruit will be gone. In Kabeoka menwhle, there is a similar well where the fruit thrown into the depths of the first, will then float up from the bottom of the second when no one is looking. No one is actually sure why the well only works with non-magical fruit, and only in this direction. This also once caused an incident, when a recently installed security camera in a nearby parking lot caused the well to become "backlogged" for three months, only for everything to come out at once, the first time the camera was turned off for maintenance.
7 - Do you prefer your fare meatier and fresher? Or are you looking for a job, and find the idea of something that incorporates both herbology and working with animals an appealing occupation? Or maybe you're just looking for some cheap wool? Well, you can find all three of those things at Kaneki Estate in Okamimamotte Iriguchi, on the Western Approach Road. There, you'll find the Kaneki Barometz-Lamb Plantation. From Spring to Autumn, you can get fresh off the stalk Lamb of Tartary, while wool can usually be brought at wholesalers prices all year round. If you don't mind the cold, they're also always hiring people to melt the snow and hand feed the Barometz during winter when the grass dies down.
Spoiler
"The Cover Art for J-Wrock band, Three Wolf Knights' 2006 breakout album "Karma and Beauty in Negative Places" - Wrock Recording Japan"
8 - Best selling J-Wrock band, Three Wolf Knights, actually hail from Yamainutaira. Often their backing crew and touring team are made up fellow musically inclined yokai and humans from around Kamikawa District, and they have used numerous locations throughout Yamainutaira township for many of their vinyl artworks, album covers and promotional materials over the last ten years. Chronologically;
-- The abanonded cafe on the cover of 2003's "Giri Choco Shaped Box" was at the time, an empty building on a side street of Kabeoka.
-- The photo for 2006's "Karma and Beauty in Negative Places", which unintentionally resonated with so many in the aftermath of Blood Week and the early months of the war, despite being a yokai focused album largely written before the conflict, was taken outside one of the first apparment block projects that would become the testbed for the rest of Settokanshiba.
-- The cover art for 2008's Single, "Minutes Past Midnight", was captured in the ruins of an old smelter in Tani-no-Su
-- The album it belonged to, 2008's "Theoretical Hybrid", was taken with the help of a local friend of Hanyou descent.
-- The three 2010 singles "A Possesion You Don't Want Out", "London Beckoned", and "Songs Written By Machines" respectively depict a kitsune in one of the band's original bar hangouts in Noukamura, the view down the Western Approach Road in Okamimamotte Iriguchi, and the interior of one of the modern smelter buildings in the Doukouzan Copper Extraction and Refinery Facility.
-- The album cover for 2010's "21st Century Nimrods" was taken in Matangi-Ken no Shinrin, with a few Matangi-Ken friends playing the roles of the traditional hunters and the lonely rifleman.
-- The promotional art for their 2011 "KamiKamiKami" tour, is of a real clearing of standing stones on Matangi-Ken property.
-- The locations on the cover art of the two 2012 Singles, "This Ain't Fun" and "Still My Exception" are from Yamainutaira Junior High, and the grounds of Hokubu-no-Okami Shokonsha Yashiro.
-- And the cover of their latest album, 2013's "This is Love, War, Nightmares and Dreams", includes a drawn rendition of the Retaruseta Kamuy's Lonely Hearts Club Bar in Noukamura, where they wrote and recorded parts of the album.
9 - In Settoshugyoba there is a irohamomiji tree that is locally known as the Red Tree of Fate. So the tale goes, lovers who write each other's names on the trunk in red ink shall always eventually return to each other, so long as their names remain on the tree. This is actually an entirely bogus myth of muggle origin, likely inspired by a combination of the western "names carved into a tree" trope, and the fact that the kanji of "Hokubu Riichimaru and Setto Kana - 1945" can be seen chiseled into the bark of the tree. Still, many couples do so anyway, if only for the gesture and romance factor. More recently it has also become a trend to for couples that have brushed or painted on each other's names, to also re-ink the carved kanji left by Hokubu Riichimaru and Setto Kana at the same time.
10 - Yamainutaira's economy is not a closed system. Many of the town's industries not only rely on trade and sales to other parts of Japan, but also rely on other parts of Kamikawa District for their raw materials, furthering the benefits of their presence to the provincial economy as well. Almost 30% of the lumber Yamainutaira Luber Mill processes comes from outside the township's borders, as does 50% of the various fruits used by HOWLING Juice products, while 45% of the copper slag that Doukouzan Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility reprocesses, comes from a pair of decommissioned mines that no longer have the local workforce or facilities to reprocess the slag themselves. About 25% to 30% of the combined workforce from all three operations, technically live outside Yamainutaira's borders, usually in the township of Kamikawa itself, down in the valley on the otherside of Okamiryosen.
11 - Wondering what the thing against bears many of the local muggles seem to occasionally have is? Thankfully, those of ursine origin don't actually have anything to worry about. They don't actually dislike bears, they just hate the Junior High Bears Baseball Team of Tomamae, in Rumoi Sub-prefecture. The origin of this rivalry actually stems all the way back to ancient times, when the Onikuma clans of Rokusensawa first drove the Ezo Wolves of the Setto Clan into the mountains and raided the den-homes of the Matangi-Ken. The arrival of the Hokubu did little to change this ancient feud, which for much of the 1500s and 1600s, actually intensified due to the gradual shift in power that took place. While the Onikuma of Rokusensawa ever weakened from their constant warring, the alliance of the Hokubu, Setto and Matangi-Ken eventually allowed the three clans to not just outnumber, but also out-innovate, and eventually out politically out-maneuver the Rokusensawa. Right up until the Meiji Restoration, there existed a rivalry that even permeated down into the muggle populace between the two towns. One that has ironically, actually outlasted most of the yokai that initially perpetuated it. While the changing nature of society has caused most of the younger generations of bears, wolves and dogs to not really feel beholden to the historic feud out of necessity and perspective, the rivalry was so much a part of each locales identity that it persisted past the Statute of Secrecy and initial obliviations. Now days though, it takes the form of a fiercely competitive sporting and academics rivalry. Even in sports and competitions where Yamainutaira or Kamikawa Sub-prefecture isn't up against Tomamae or Rumoi Sub-prefecture, you can usually expect the locals to be cheering on the opposite team simply on principle.
12 - Want to get some wheels to get around? Well, firstly you're going to need to learn how to drive. For those with an understanding and magical perspective, who are experienced with teaching those unfamiliar with muggle motor vehicles, try contacting the A1 Automotive Driving School in Noukamura. For those more interested in getting around by bus or train, they can also help set up and instruct in the matters of acquiring muggle public transport cards, and making sense of muggle train and bus schedules.
Spoiler
"Thanks for reading and and hopefully this guide has proven helpful in getting to know just a little bit more about our town, and how we hope to lend a hand whenever it is needed. From all of us on the team with the Yamainutaira War Migrant Support Program and Yamainutaira Town Council, we wish you the best of luck and good fortune with whatever comes next. - Hokubu Kariudoko"
Has this guide proven helpful? Do you have anything you feel we should suggest, add or change? Or are you somebody that just wants to help out? Well, to set up a meeting, or owl and mail in your suggestions, you can contact us at;
Yamainutaira War Migrant Support Program
Kabeoka Town Hall,
165 Chouyakuba Road, Kabeoka,
Yamainutaira, Kamikawa District
Hokkaido