A living testament to the union between spirits and humans, the city of Homay is the holiest place in all Shinri and has traditionally served as the Shinri Emperor’s seat of power and the location of the Imperial court. The city is also renowned for its beautiful temples, palaces and gardens, making it the indisputed cultural capital of Shinri. As the most important city in the land Homay has been witness to many great historical events from the times of the first Shinri state to the Shinri empire such as the fall of the Seishin-Gumi, the reunification of Shinri and the Mazarine invasion.
The city of Homay was founded in the year 3246 AF by the First Incarnate, who sought to create a new city to represent the union between the Spirit and human worlds. He chose the location of the great tree-spirit Hakibu-Isogi, traditionally considered the heart of Shinri, and established there the foundations for his capital. The city he made would be named Homay, a word in old Shinri meaning throne of harmony.
Homay would remain as the spiritual capital of the Shinri people for the remainder of its history and every ruler to succeed the First Incarnate would stay in Homay, making the city the seat of the Imperial court. Other important institutions that would establish their base in Homay were the Spiritual Custodian, the highest-ranking spiritual sage who acted as advisor to the Emperor, and the Takai Ekta, a council formed by the four most powerful elementalists in Shinri who represented the land’s four great clans. The Seishin-Gumi also made Homay its base, creating a vast underground complex where they stored their knowledge and sacred relics such as the Imperial Seal.
The fallout from the murder of the Shinri imperial family in the year 3919 would trigger a great calamity for the Imperial capital, throwing it into a decade-long period of chaos where warlords and noble families fought each other in bloody battles for control of the city. Many of the city’s historical buildings were burnt to the ground and it sustained damage that would take it nearly a century to recover.
The victors of this struggle for power were the Seishin-Gumi, who succesfully took control of the city from the shadows and turned it into their personal domain. While the Spiritual custodian and the Takai Ekta council were nominally in charge, the custodian’s true power lay in his position as secret leader of the Seishin-Gumi and the council were reduced to powerless ceremonial figures.
In the many years that followed the collapse of centralized authority in Shinri many warlords would later claim control of the city, they would never truly be in power as the Seishin-Gumi had true control over the city and would swiftly eliminate threats to their rule or leave them as nothing but puppets. The most notorious warlord to take the city was Hidetsu Takenaga, a brilliant general with ambitions to unify all of Shinri under his rule. Takenaga occupied the city in 4022 to legitimize his rule and forced the Takai Ekta to name him Shogun of all Shinri.
His rule would be short-lived as the Incarnate claimant Renshin backed by the Hibotoru clan would reclaim control of the city in less than six months since he took over. Once Renshin liberated the city he was officialy recognized as the true Incarnate by Spiritual custodian Kenamaru, who granted him the divine mandate to unify all Shinri. After Takenaga was finally assassinated by the Incarnate’s companions peace returned at last to Shinri and Renshin was crowned shortly after as Shinri emperor, the first to do so after nearly a century of chaos. Even with a new emperor the Seishin-Gumi still held true power over the city and quickly bent Renshin to their will, turning him into little more than a figurehead.
After three years of peaceful rule a new threat emerged against the Seishin-Gumi’s authority once they discovered that the true Incarnate was Renshin’s adopted brother Seigo, a revelation that proved their chosen Incarnate was an impostor all along. Fearing the threat Seigo posed to their rule the Seishin-Gumi attempted to assassinate him along with his companions who knew the truth. This ended in failure for the secret organization and ended up strating a sequence of events which led to Seigo declaring himself as the true Incarnate and triggering a great revolt against Seishin-Gumi rule known as the War of two Incarnates.
Throughout the war the Seishin-Gumi lost many powerful members in their fight against the Incarnate’s companions and as they were distracted the Oni began to gain more power and influence, achieving a successful infiltration of the city of Homay. The Seishin-Gumi’s control of the city collapsed after in the year 4027 the Incarnate’s companions broke into their headquarters in a daring secret operation and assassinated Kenamaru, ending their long reign over the city. Unfortunately the Oni took advantage of this to sneak into the Seishin-Gumi base and steal the Imperial seal, gaining a valuable asset for their sinister plans.
With the Seishin-Gumi defeated Renshin abdicated his throne to Seigo not long after, accepting that he was not fit to rule and retiring from politics to pursue his personal goals. The new emperor would officialy proclaim the unification of Shinri, creating a new centralized and modern state abandoning the worst practices of feudalism. Due to the looming threat posed by the Oni the new Incarnate chose to maintain the Seishin-Gumi, renaming the organization as the Guardians of Harmony and placing his trusted ally Shizen as its leader. He also named his mentor Vashir as the city’s new Spiritual custodian, an unpopular decision among the traditional clergy as Vashir was the leader of a new religious movement named the Harmonious Path which preached the supremacy of the Incarnate over the land’s primal spirits.
While the Incarnate’s policies were popular with the merchant and lower classes, the old nobility strongly rejected them feeling it was a betrayal of Shinri traditions. To quell their protests the Incarnate placed those willing to compromise in government positions and sent his secret intelligence forces led by Keito to purge those who posed a threat to his rule. The Homay court was the main focus of these actions and not long after his ascension all of the city’s most powerful nobles were either dead, exiled or in service of the Incarnate.
Some members of the Incarnate’s court proposed to change the capital to Klonum citing the city’s economic strength and closer ties with the Incarnate’s rebel movement, but he refused for now considering that it would be a massively unpopular decision considering the special place Homay had for the Shinri people. He would reverse course many years later, officialy naming Klonum as the seat of government but granting Homay many special privileges as the spiritual capital of Shinri.
(FUTURE EVENTS WILL BE ADDED AS THE SHINRI CAMPAIGN PROGRESSES)
In the era of the Shinri alliance the old capital of Homay had lost some of its past greatness but still remained as one of the nation’s most important cities. Homay’s beautiful temples and monuments would draw scores of tourists and pilgrims to the city, making it Shinri’s second most visited city after Klonum. It also retained parts of its traditional form of government as part of Incarnate Seigo’s policies with the Spiritual Custodian remaining as the ceremonial leader of the city. The new Incarnate Yara visited the city in 4098 as part of her grand tour through Shinri, drawing a massive crowd of people who wished to meet Seigo’s reincarnation.
Homay would be thrown once again into the national spotlight when in 4100 the Crimson revolution broke out in the city of Klonum, a pivotal event which caused the collapse of the Shinri government as the rebels took control and proclaimed the People’s Republic of Klonum. In the aftermath of the revolution the Incarnate Yara vanished after her duel with the rebel leader Amatatsu, leading many to believe she died.
The remnants of the legitimate authorities fled to Homay and declared nation-wide martial law, triggering the Shinri civil war. The spiritual capital would remain as the seat of the legitimate Shinri government until the rebels were finally defeated in the battle of Klonum after six years of brutal war. Rebel holdouts would still remain scattered throughout the nation, prolonging the conflict many more years.
While the Shinri alliance survived the Crimson revolution it had little time to recover before another devastating crisis would strike. The Mazarine war engulfing the continent would spill over into Shinri as a Mazarine army led by Baytar Revilo entered Shinri lands in search for the Incarnate Yara, who still lived and was leading a resistance group against the Mazarines.
She took refuge in Homay and after the city refused to turn her in the Mazarines invaded it with their great army, starting the Siege of Homay. While the defenders of Homay fought valiantly against the Mazarines they were no match against the empire’s modernized army and large parts of the city were bombed to the ground in the ensuing battle. The Mazarines had won the battle but they were unsuccessful in capturing the Incarnate, who managed to escape thanks to the sacrifices of Homay’s brave defenders.
The destruction of Homay shocked the Shinri people and pushed all the opposing factions from the civil war to unite under the Incarnate so they could expel the invaders from their homeland. Now united and powerful, the Shinri army achieved spectacular victories against the Mazarine army and recovered the city of Homay in less than a year. The defeat on the Shinri front would be one of the factors that doomed the Mazarine empire to collapse as their army took devastating losses and drew Shinri into a war they were otherwise ambivalent to.
With the end of the Mazarine war and the formation of the Great Continental Alliance the spiritual capital of Shinri had a chance to rebuild after the destruction, becoming once again the beautiful city beloved by the Shinri people. Now that Shinri became a great empire and one of the world’s hegemonic powers the city of Homay grew in importance on the international stage. With the world at peace and the economy booming tourism in Homay would increase exponentially, generating massive revenues to the Shinri empire. These benefits are not loved by everyone since many of the city’s inhabitants feel that their culture has become commercialized and turned into an attraction for disrespectful foreign tourists, feeling nostalgia for the great city of times past.
The city of Homay sits above a small plateau located on the eastern side of a mountainous region named the Jubata highlands which forms a natural border between Shinri and the Thalos region. It sits above a large underground water basin which provides the city with ample freshwater to sustain a large population. The city’s climate is humid subtropical, providing it with hot, humid summers and cold winters.
Additionally, thanks to its proximity to Hakibu-Isogi’s domain the city has strong spiritual influences manifesting in occasional appearances of earth and nature spirits along with the city’s trees growing supernaturally large. Due to the Seishin-Gumi’s domination of the Spirit world the ancient tree spirit began to rot and corrupt, but ever since the Incarnate ascended to the Shinri throne it bloomed once more showing that the city had gained new life.
Homay’s economy has always depended largely on its visitors, from spiritual pilgrims during the Shinri state and age of warlords to tourists in the present day. While the Mazarine war had a destructive impact in the city’s economy it swiftly recovered thanks to massive investment pouring in from the Shinri empire.
The city’s major economic sector is traditional Shinri crafts such as brewing, weaving and making spiritual charms. All of Homay’s products are renowned for their quality and craftsmanship, making them heavily demanded by the wealthy in Shinri and beyond. While the city center remains untouched many chi-foundries have begun to open in its regional area, drawing scores of workers and stimulating its development.
Homay is the city in Shinri with the most religious temples, which number in the thousands and are devoted to each and every one of the land’s major spirits. The greatest of these is the Temple of the Silver Tree, a massive ironwood structure dedicated to Hakibu-Isogi which houses shrines dedicated to the land’s major spirits.
Homay also houses many great buildings associated with the city’s imperial past such as the Shinri Imperial palace, the home and seat of power of the Shinri emperor for centuries, and the Ujinori gardens, a massive natural complex considered the most beautiful park in all Shinri. The city is also renowned for its historical tea-houses, restaurants and geisha parlors, making every visit a rich and memorable experience.