Magic in the World of Amahara

Sengoku Amahara
Steampunk Amahara

Oriental

Shinto

Shinto is a belief system centered around the concept of animism - that every describable aspect of the world, from seasons and weather down to the finest workings of clockwork, is managed by a vast community of gods and spirits. It is the national religion of Amahara and its clerics, the shrine maidens, practice its most revered magical art - that of mediating interaction between the human realm and the spirit realm. In this way, it is essentially a very highly developed form of shamanism tempered by the concepts of bureaucracy and order imported from the Middle Kingdom. The magical practitioners of the Shinto religion are the shrine maidens (miko) who might, depending on time period and region, be expected to fill all the traditional duties of witch, shaman, wisewoman, healer, oracle or priestess. Using elaborate rituals, dances, and other traditional methods of attracting spiritual attention, a shrine maiden may summon and interact with gods and spirits who may be asked to do any number of things. The emphasis is on objects, emblems, and physical or artistic rituals such as music or dance. Scriptures are an imported Middle Kingdom advent. Although now considered an acceptable medium of interaction, Amaharan gods are still "wilder" than their Middle Kingdom counterparts and even the greatest Shinto workings can be accomplished without literacy.

One important distinction from most other forms of magic is that the miko has relatively little personal power inherent to herself - the spirit does all the heavy lifting and the ways to compel them against their nature are limited. The effectiveness of Shinto rituals, while potentially dramatic, therefore require the cooperation of the spirits. This can be more difficult to achieve in areas outside of Amahara until shrines have been set up, the local gods enshrined, and people taught to worship them appropriately.

Onmyodo

Onmyodo, the way of Yin and Yang, is derived from the Tao of the Middle Kingdom combined with Shinto and some esoteric parts of buddhism. Unlike shrine maidens, onmyoji are not technically clerics of a religion, but practitioners of an art that can be described and repeated.

Tao

Tao is the Middle Kingdom ancestor of onmyodo, dating to at least the 7th century BC and has itself evolved into numerous sects, of which onmyodo could be considered a branch.