Shunko has become the domain of Daimyo Oda Nobunaga when he started his campaign at the start of the Sengoku to unify all of Nihon. This is at the time when Nihon was ruled by powerful Daimyus all over the land, the Shogunate virtually ruled by a Puppet, a weakling who had to rely on the blessing of the Imperial family to stay in power. But all over, Nihon is a virtual battlefield, clans and powerful families all jockeying up for a March to the Capital Edo to take over.

 

 

Lord Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful of them all had set his sights on a unified Nihon, getting the support of the most powerful families in the land, the Tokugawas, the Otomos, the Azais, the Takedas..and eventually the Toyotomis.  Shunko is his powerbase, his favorite province that sits right in the middle of the warring states- vital to a trade route that spans the whole of Nihon. It is an enigmatic as much as a mysterious land, with beautiful mountains, vast plains and the blessings of a nearby Izo coastlines that brings in both evil and good tides. Trades from the other continents brought forth on its shores unimaginable treasures and knowledge, opening old Nihon to the gaijins...Alas it also brought another kind of enemy both from the Gaijins and supernatral from the western world. 

 

 

Shunko was once impenetrable- surrounded by mountains and forests that has been thought to be populated by  the supernaturals. For centuries it remained closed to the outside world. Oda Nobunaga they said tried to hack through its dense forests and mountains only to be met by hordes of mysterious onis and bakemonos- his army decimated in one night battle with the creatures . The battle turned to his favor suddenly. It was told, The Lord Oda, sold his very soul to the demons- to the most powerful of them all, spoken only in whispers but never openly talked about. Nihon, after all , they say is ruled by another kind of beings..above all mortals and the ongoing mortal battles that threatened the every existence of Nihon is all but part of an elaborate play by these higher beings.. that we are all just puppets to these masters, even the most powerful of them all, the Daimyu Oda himself.. 

 

 

Going back to the tale.. he managed to quell the beasts- and the creatures.. took over and set up himself in a huge black castle that now hovers over the land like a sinister presence. Shunko was  born soon after.

 

It has become a bustling center of trade and religious activity. Its a strange amalgam of the old and the new, the  latter made so by  the steady stream of new trade that comes from across the seas, from travellers and strange beings from Nihon's northernmost and sourthern most provinces.