1) Origins

Origins of Yamato’s “Edo”: From Warring Centuries to the Treaty of Harmony

After generations of clan wars between humans, yōkai, and the factions that courted the favor of local kami, Yamato finally staggered toward unity under two towering figures whose approaches could not have been more different. Oda Nobunaga broke the back of feudal chaos with audacity: he welcomed embassies from Kitsune no Mori, bought loyalty from Oni who respected strength, courted Ryūjin envoys at Nagisato, and dared to field mixed hosts beneath a single command flag. For a brief, blazing moment, human banners flew alongside yōkai crests and shrine streamers, and it seemed the realms might truly fight as one. But the same heat that forged new alliances also scorched old oaths. Nobunaga’s sackings, his defiance of tradition, and his demand that every power—mortal or spirit—bow to his vision made him indispensable and intolerable. He died in a fire set by his own, a blaze that still haunts campfire songs.
Into the smoke stepped Tokugawa Ieyasu: patient, weathered, and unshakably pragmatic. Where Nobunaga commanded by shock, Tokugawa governed by structure. He rallied those weary of bloodshed—humans from Sakuragawa, Tengu stewards of Reikonzan passes, Okami patrols from the Kirin Steppe, even Kitsune intermediaries who preferred order to ruin. In a series of quiet campaigns and negotiated submissions, he finished what Nobunaga began, then did the harder work: he locked the peace into law. The Treaty of Harmony, sealed in Sakuragawa, mapped human domains, recognized yōkai homelands (Kirin Steppe, Kitsune no Mori, Yukigakure), and reaffirmed shrine lands as neutral sanctuaries. It created a Council of Harmony, an omiai of powers where grievances could be voiced under watchful Shogunate scribes. The Emperor remained sacral sovereign, yet the Shōgun’s word—backed by inspectors, registrars, and the quiet threat of mixed-response forces—became the hinge of Yamato’s new era. Thus began the age that mirrors Earth’s Edo: a long season of order after storms, a peace lived under rules and ritual, and a calm whose stillness sometimes reveals the cracks beneath.