In the Age of Lingering Light, three kinds of beings walk the archipelago.
They are not equal in origin.
They are not equal in power.
But they are bound within the same spiritual ecology.
None were created accidentally.
Each exists because the world required them.
Mortals emerged after the islands stabilized and the boundary between Celestial Plain and Root Below was sealed. They were not shaped directly from divine principle like the earliest kami, nor condensed from spiritual phenomena like many yokai.
They arose from balanced soil — land touched by light and shadow alike.
They are not embodiments.
They are not anchors.
They are interruption.
They are change made flesh.
Where kami are structure and yokai are manifestation, mortals are Becoming.
Mortals possess three defining traits.
Mortal souls are flexible. They bend toward purity, corruption, devotion, ambition, oath, doubt, sacrifice, or love with equal intensity.
This makes them unstable — but uniquely capable of transformation.
A mortal may:
Rise into mythic resonance.
Fall into rot and spiritual stain.
Bind themselves to shrine service.
Found traditions that reshape entire islands.
Their destiny is not prescribed.
It is constructed.
Mortals are deeply affected by spoken and sworn commitments.
Oaths generate spiritual gravity.
Broken vows scar the soul.
Kept vows reinforce unseen protections.
The early Way of the Sword forms among mortals because they require chosen structure to refine themselves. Honor is not inherited.
It is enforced by consequence.
In Asorai, belief alone is weak.
Commitment changes reality.
Mortals die.
Their souls descend to the Root Below, where light and shadow separate once more.
This impermanence defines them.
They build shrines because they will not endure.
They cultivate rice because winter does not wait.
They write names because memory dissolves.
Mortality is not weakness in Asorai.
It is pressure.
And pressure creates legend.
Mortalkind is young.
Clans are still forming.
Proto-nations are fragile.
Sword philosophies are emerging through lived experience rather than doctrine.
Shrine networks act as stabilizing frameworks against spiritual erosion.
Mortals dominate stable regions not through divine right — but through persistence.
They adapt.
They systematize.
They ritualize.
They are fragile — and therefore transformative.
Unlike yokai, they are not bound to a single concept.
Unlike kami, they are not tied to structural permanence.
They can become almost anything.
That is why the gods withdrew.
Because only mortals can decide what the world becomes next.
Yokai are not a single species.
They are spiritual phenomena given persistent identity.
Some descend from lesser kami whose influence localized.
Some coalesced from intense emotion.
Some formed where celestial resonance and under-shadow friction overlap.
Where humans are possibility, yokai are manifestation.
They are the world’s moods made durable.
Though wildly varied in form and temperament, yokai share several traits.
Every yokai embodies something.
Cunning.
Hunger.
Storm.
Memory.
Resentment.
Devotion.
If their core weakens, they destabilize.
If their core strengthens — through fear, reverence, story, or territory — they grow.
They are sustained by narrative weight.
Most yokai do not age as humans do.
They may be banished, sealed, purified, fragmented, or corrupted further — but rarely do they “die” in a final sense.
They disperse back into spiritual ecology.
Over time, they may reform — changed.
Yokai are strongest in domains aligned with their essence.
A forest spirit outside the forest weakens.
A storm oni inland grows restless.
A river maiden trapped from her waters fades.
Their power is relational.
They are anchors, not conquerors.
Yokai do not universally hate humanity.
They are wary of it.
Humans alter environments.
Humans build shrines.
Shrines formalize and structure spiritual power.
Yokai power is fluid and narrative.
Shrine power is maintained and codified.
This creates tension.
Yet alliances are common:
Spirit-bound warriors.
Shrine-mediated truces.
Fox courts advising clan leaders.
Winged ascetics observing sword philosophy.
Yokai understand something humans are still learning:
Balance is maintenance.
Not victory.
Kami were born from the First Division of existence — the great principles that shaped mountain, river, wind, sky, hearth, and flame.
They are not “gods” in the hierarchical sense.
They are principles with agency.
Forces with intention.
Reality given awareness.
In a distant age, the greater kami withdrew to the Celestial Plain.
They did not die.
They did not abandon the world in anger.
They stepped back.
Asorai was meant to breathe alone.
Their absence defines the era.
Kami differ fundamentally from both humans and yokai.
A kami is not merely associated with a concept.
It is the concept in localized form.
A river kami is the river’s continuity.
A hearth kami is warmth and shelter’s persistence.
A mountain kami is endurance.
Destroying a shrine does not kill a kami — but neglect weakens its manifestation.
Kami exist on multiple tiers.
Minor kami: tied to paddies, bridges, groves, hearths.
Regional kami: storms, mountain ranges, deep forests.
Celestial presences: distant, rarely manifesting, felt only through resonance.
Since the Withdrawal, direct intervention is rare.
Favor is conditional.
Silence is common.
Kami are aligned toward balance and continuity.
They are not inherently benevolent.
A storm kami may destroy a fleet if neglected.
A rot-bound presence may arise near spiritual instability.
Purity and corruption are structural states, not moral judgments.
Asorai exists because these three remain distinct.
If humans were as fixed as yokai, culture would stagnate.
If yokai were as mortal as humans, myth would collapse.
If kami returned fully, autonomy would end.
The Age depends on:
Human growth.
Yokai presence.
Kami distance.
Rare individuals blur boundaries:
Humans born with deep spirit affinity.
Yokai who choose mortality to stabilize identity.
Shrine-bound descendants carrying divine resonance.
Such beings often become legends.
Or catastrophes.
Spiritual boundaries in Asorai are thin — especially near the Deep Below.
Humans are Becoming.
Yokai are Manifestation.
Kami are Structure.
Humans build shrines.
Yokai haunt forests.
Kami sustain rivers.
None are complete alone.
The world does not demand harmony.
It sustains tension.
And in that tension — legend forms.