Daoists

The Daoists arrived in Crossroads as a slow, distributed migration. Shortly after the Cataclysm, the Chinese Emperor laid a call to settle the no man's land of the Crossroads region, in a similar vein to the the call for American settlers to West under Manifest Destiny. With the region a lifeless desert increasingly filled with yaoguai, it was primarily Daoist fundamentalists that took up this initial call.
They lamented the role that China had played in the Cataclysm, even if they believed Russia had deployed the weapon that made the Cataclysm, and sought to heal the land and the Retribution. Daoists founded various settlements along the Retribution River, though it was the Orthodox that founded the settlement of Crossroads Proper. Not to be outdone, many of those in the hamlets migrated to the settlement, building the Yulü and Shenshu Temples as a symbol of Daoist resolve.
Today, Daoist settlers make up the majority of the population of the hamlets, though they are a slight minority in Crossroads Proper. When most Crossroadians think of Daoists, they think of farmers like Zhang Jing working farms like the Zhang Farmstead.
However, Daoists were also the ones to discover the capabilities of the Greater Silkworm, and today most of the profit of the New Silk trade is made by Daoists (much to the chargrin of John Kensley and his From Pennies to Penance Foundation).
After the discovery of New Silk, it was largely Daoist traders that setup the New Silk Road, though few of those traders actually live in Crossroads, merely passing through it.

Structure

The Daoists are a distributed network of immigrants, mainly lead by community elders and the priests that manage their temples.

Type

Religious, Other

Alternative Names

Taosists

Demonym

Daoist, Taoist

Controlled Territories

• Yulü and Shenshu Temples
• Zhang Farmstead

Notable Members

• Fu Mei
• Zhang Jing