This content was originally included in Champion of Kamigawa theme decks. The original text can be accessed via Internet Archive here: Kami Reborn, Snake’s Path, Spiritbane, and Way of the Warrior.

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Contents:

1. Common Backstory
2. Insert (Kami Reborn)
3. Insert (Snake’s Path)
4. Insert (Spiritbane)
5. Insert (Way of the Warrior)

Common Backstory

Kamigawa and the Kami War

Long before Mirrodin existed, on the other side of the multiverse, there was Kamigawa—a plane in the midst of a terrible war.

A gang of akki goblins try to flee from an angry ice spirit that appears from out of nowhere. A cloud of bizarre creatures emerge from a samurai’s heirloom lantern, attacking him while he sleeps. At the Minamo School, students of wizardry fight nonstop to stem a flow of strange beings that materialize from within the Great Waterfall.

It wasn’t always this way on Kamigawa.

For hundreds of years, Kamigawa’s denizens peacefully worshipped the spirits inherent in everything—spirits of sacred places, objects, and ideas. Each of these kami was a divinity, and the way to happiness was to honor the kami and live by their ways. The inhabitants of Kamigawa were content with this life of devotion. Then the unimaginable happened: their gods turned on them.

Slowly at first, kami began to take form in the material world. Some scholars believed the kami were delivering a message or a warning. But their appearance was so alien, so surreal, that no meaning could be discerned.

At that time, the plan’s most powerful warlord, the daimyo Takeshi Konda ruled over the Towabara Plains from his stronghold at Eiganjo. But even as his armies and samurai secured more territory in Konda’s name, the kami manifested in ever-greater numbers.

Insert (Kami Reborn)

Life Begets Death, Eternally

Iname. His very name told his story—the word means both the nothingness of death and the budding of life. Long before the Kami War, the tale of Iname (ee-NAH-may) was a well-known lesson in the balance of yin and yang.

Before the first dawn of the material world, there was the spirit world. Even then, all the kami existed, but in chaos—each trying to find its place, its call. Long after most had discovered their purpose, young Iname was lost.

However, in his lowest moment he grasped a miraculous idea: he would create another kami. Perhaps his creation could tell him what his purpose should be. At once, Iname began to shape the spirit realm, giving form and substance to void. As he did, his own shape changed; his body became long and green, his hair took on the colors of autumn, and from his back grew a canopy of leaves. His creation found life, and Iname found his purpose. Iname’s child was the first flower kami.

Many ages passed and the flower kami grew older and wiser. One day, the flower asked, “What is my purpose?” Iname replied, “Your purpose is to be my child.” But the flower was dissatisfied. In time she began to pull away from Iname, and Iname resisted. He felt that without his child, his purpose would be gone. Iname grew bitter and selfish, and became consumed by thoughts of abandonment.

The day came when the flower told Iname that she was leaving. Iname raged and wept, but the flower insisted. Something inside Iname broke in two. Another part of him emerged, with a long body like the rotten spine of a dragon, with terrible claws and a leathery cowl. It engulfed the flower and snuffed out its life. It was the first time a kami had died. Only then did Iname realize that he was two selves, one of life and one of death, each meaningless without the other. And in the eons since, the first Iname has created life countless times, only to watch as his other self snuffs it out.

Insert (Snake’s Path)

Hatching A Dynasty

For centuries, most humans thought the orochi were just “snakes with arms and legs’—mindless killers with no emotion. In reality, the orochi were just simple hunters, content to shut out the outside world. Of all the inhabitants of Kamigawa, the orochi were perhaps those most closely in tune with the kami.

When the great Kami War began, the orochi were despondent. At first they refused to take up arms against the nature spirits they worshipped, letting themselves be slaughtered instead. They didn’t understand what was happening or why, but knew its cause came from outside their forest enclave.

A proud and stubborn orochi named Suzue (SOO-zoo-ay) changed everything. Although pregnant, Suzue left the Jukai Forest to seek out the reasons behind the kami’s ire. She traveled to the Okina Shrine, where she met a wise, old monk named Dosan and began the slow process of learning how to communicate with humans. Many months passed as Suzue split her time between Okina and the orochi colonies. When her brood finally hatched, it included a strong male named Seshiro (SEHSH-ee-roh) and, in time, Suzue brought the youngster to Okina to study martial arts with the monks while she and Dosan discussed the kami’s anger.

A year later, Suzue, Seshiro, and the old monk were attacked in the forest by a kami of decay. Seshiro saved Dosan’s life, but Suzue was fatally wounded. The young warrior returned to the colonies, vowing to stir his people into action. Seshiro quickly climbed the orochi hierarchy through ritual combat and became Broodmaster, as foretold by the shamans.

The colonies prospered under Seshiro’s guidance and began dealing more with the forest humans. Seshiro’s strongest offspring, Sosuke (SOH-soo-kay), became leader of the Kashi Tribe, and his wisest, Sachi (SAH-chee), led the Sakura Tribe. Suzue’s courage produced a dynasty that profoundly changed the orochi colonies.

Insert (Spiritbane)

Kumano’s Path of Fire

Some would rather die than live within the strict confines of a daimyo’s court.

Kumano (KOO-mah-noh) was born into a prestigious samurai family, the nephew of a powerful daimyo. But the politicking of courtly life disgusted him. As a boy, he willfully neglected his kendo training, instead wandering among the merchants and villagers of Reito. His rich parents, more interested in keeping up appearances than in Kumano’s welfare, let him do as he pleased.

Years passed and Kumano slowly changed from daydreaming boy to violent hooligan. By twenty-four he was a drunkard and a criminal and had long since been disowned by his family. He scavenged around the outskirts of Reito, stealing scraps of food and sleeping in barns. Then one evening, when Kumano had broken into an abandoned hut, he was paid a visit.

As he drifted off, a wave of intense heat suddenly blasted from the stone hearth in the hut’s center. Quickly the air grew dark and smoky, and embers began to swirl within the darkness, forming a twisted mouth. The mouth breathed and at once he was engulfed in its substance. “Fleeee,” rasped the fire kami Kumano couldn’t tell whether the voice was audible or inside his head. “Before the veil is torn …. Go to Untaidake….”

The smoke and cinder lifted. Panicked and disoriented, Kumano stumbled out of the hut. He felt as though the fire kami was all around him, commanding him. He ran from Reito and began his addled journey toward the Sokenzan Rang, toward the mountain peak Untaidake.

It was many delirious weeks before Kumano reached the mountains, and by then he was mad with hunger and fatigue. Yet a strange clarity had come over him. He felt at home in this cold, rocky expanse, far away from the intrigues of his father’s manor. He felt clear. It would be months before his meditations revealed to him that the kami had pushed him onto the shaman’s path, to the way of a yamabushi. It would be years before he learned that Reito had been annihilated the day after he fled.

Insert (Way of the Warrior)

The Noblest of All Samurai

It has been said that Munetsugu Takeno didn’t live by bushido—he was bushido. Takeno (tah-KAY-noh) commanded all the daimyo’s forces, from his seven hundred samurai to the lowliest peasant piker. The buke of Konda’s court whispered rumors of Takeno’s legendary obsession with justice. Some claimed that as a young samurai he was blessed by the great kami of justice for a magnanimous deed, and that he put justice before all else from then on.

Though only a soldier, all courtiers fell silent when Takeno entered a hall, and he commanded the daimyo’s attention more fully than any other person at Eiganjo. Even in the depths of the castle, Takeno walked fully armed. His famous daisho, Oathkeeper, hung at his waist, and his full domaru armor clanked as he strode through the corridors. His kabuto bore the Konda crest, of course, and Takeno almost always looked straight ahead, never meeting the gaze of the court nobles and other attendants.

During the darkest days of the Kami War, Takeno would lead the daimyo’s forces down Eiganjo Hill every third morning, descending the rocky tower’s long, spiraling path on horseback at full gallop. No sooner would they reach the barren Araba below then scores of kami, both grotesque and beautiful, would manifest from across the wide plain and attack. Takeno would twitch his katana so it caught the morning light, flashing orange, and the full might of his army would surge forward, their kiai war cry piercing the morning silence.

Takeno was just thirty-four years old when Konda gave him command of his armies, and the Kami War began two short years later. He trained and commanded Kamigawa’s fiercest samurai for two decades, and his fealty to his lord Konda was unwavering. But even Takeno eventually had to acknowledge an eerie truth. While he was slowly becoming an old man, the daimyo had not aged a day. But like blind justice, Takeno said nothing, serving his seemingly immortal lord with absolute devotion.