The Emperor has died, The kingdom has shattered, and war has consumed the land.

In the northeastern province of Guijiang the terrible effects of this war has come crashing down atop of their heads. A small and inconsequential strip of land situated within the Guijiang Valley where its name is derived. Yet now with conflict brewing between General Zhen Ba and General Fan Yi, the valley ability to move troops more easily through the surrounding mountains has made it into a contested war zone between Zhen and Fan.

The troops and supply caravans moving into the valley has put both sides into conflict with the local bandits who dwell within a series cave hidden within the surrounding woods. The bandits seeing opportunity with the Zhen and the Fan being preoccupied with one another would strike out against their lines taken food, supplies and the like at their leisure, the raiding parties always coming at night and slipping back into the woods before any real response could of been thrown against them. These attacks have inadvertently gained the support of the mostly agrarian populace of the province. As they saw anyone who was attacking and harassing the soldiers that were raping their women, burning down their homes, and generally causing a ruckus while not doing anything useful like DEFENDING them from MONSTERS the bandits were almsot preferable.

Shortly thereafter there was a small influx of the local populace into the woods to join up with the bandits for protection. (Most staying in the confines of their homes either too stubborn to leave or willing to risk it with the soldiers, only the desperate and the vengeful willing to even consider it.) At first the bandits were taken aback but as they began to be treated as heroes and the populace they offered shelter to began rewarding them for their service it turns out the bandits liked being rebels instead. And so now this cluster of deserters, brigands, and peasants must somehow repel these invaders.

They know it is only a matter of time before the Zhen or Fan secure the province and when that happens a much stronger force will be able to be sent into the woods and crush the rebels once and for all. And so using the smoke and carnage of the ongoing conflict as their only advantage they move to strike first aiming to take over the small Fan controlled town of Daluzhuang for if they can do that and show their ability to actually defeat the armies they may be able to gain support of the local elders and with the support of the elders comes the province.

Sorcery is somehow at the same time one of the oldest arts in the Kingdom and one of the newest. The time of gods and demons actively partaking upon the mortal sphere was thought to be long ago but the chaos and discord caused by the war has made the two worlds begin to bleed together. Thus practitioners of these ancient arts have regained abilities thought to have been lost long ago, these practitioners being collectively known as Tongji. The powers they use are best understood as three different ‘schools’ of thought.

Channelers typically use scrolls, potions and the like part alchemist and part sorcerer. Through the uses of these materials as casting mediums they are able to perform miracles small and large from casting fireballs, to creating blades of moving wind, to healing wounds. Channeling is more of an articulate science than it is anything else with the formulas, incantations, and materials used have to be just right or things can just not work or go terribly terribly wrong. Channelers are considered by many as the most powerful of the Tongji for their versatility and ability to seemingly bend reality to their will, but resultantly they are also very very rare as it takes typically a lifetime committed to study to actually use their power to any effect, as a result most are just old souls trying to gain back the youth of their glory days.

Binders are the type most commonly seen in the South. Binding unlike channeling is less based in science and study and more upon feeling and understanding. A binder can as their name suggest bind spirits and demons to their will through pacts of communion. Some spirits are little more than floating orbs of light that help guide their path, others more vengeful creatures are fearsome beast of battle that will fight their foes to the death, and some binders have been known in dire circumstances to bend animals and in rare cases humans to their will, though such arts are looked down by many as dark and evil things. Generally the rule of thumb with binding is the stronger the things will is the harder it is to bind them which is why controlling humans is feat only performed by very powerful and very desperate binders.

There are also of course Physical users, Men and Women that devote their entire lives to achieving harmony through bodily strength and sheer force of will. By harnessing their own inner strength and tapping into these energy they are able to do feats considered miraculous by the common man. Shatter armor with a series of punches, catch arrows out of the air, jump walls with great leaps. But such users typically devote themselves to lives of simple living in isolated monasteries and for them to take place in affairs simple as common warfare would be great indeed. Though it is not unheard of simple soldiers being able to tap into such abilities in times of great stress when they exert themselves to the fullest.

It is time of learning and new technologies despite or maybe because of the war. Steel exists but is a relatively new invention in the scope of time with most weapons and armor still made of iron. The firelance predecessor to what one would recognize as a gun exist but they and their larger cannon sized brethren are still made of bamboo wherein they are used once and then discarded for more traditional tactics their inaccuracy and tendency to explode on the user making them more of a scare tactic than anything else. And so the prefered ranged unit of the day is still the crossbow. The horse gained after the pacification of the East has been introduced by this point into everyday life including warfare and the first cavalry units had been formed. It is fun fun fun.