Old Irumi

With the end of the War of Fire, Tansa Province finally has a chance to recover economically and agriculturally. Vast tracts of land have been destroyed by the armies and their implements of war. Lord Tansa may have won the war, but his people lost in many ways. Although the opportunity to trade with the mainland is promising, many people remain skeptical that peace will last for long. Many claim to see phantoms stalking the dead wastes, though whether their crossing of the Borderlands is due to the previous violence or is a portent of more to follow, few care to guess. The prolonged rainy season seems a response from the forest gods to wash away the humans' stain of destruction. Few phantoms willingly interact with humans, and humans fear the phantoms or disbelieve their existence entirely. Although their worlds exist alongside each other, phantoms are rarely beneficial to humans, and humans treat phantoms even worse. At best they are slaves to men, and at worse they are vermin to be eradicated. Humans who make their livelihood defending humans from the threat of phantoms are known as shamans, and are tolerated only because men fear intangible phantoms slightly more than the tangible mystics who repel them. Many villages have been left without spiritual protection in recent years, and some feel this is as it should be. The age of nightmares has passed. Phantoms no longer have a place in this world. Let progress drive away the cobwebs of superstition. Irumi is changing, but not in the way most people hope. The Borderlands are opening further, and soon the worlds of men and phantoms will mix in ways some never dreamed possible. The age of phantoms is far from over, and the nightmares have only just begun.