Chowinga (ˈtʃowiŋqa)

Chowinga is the largest of the Manmosu Islands, situated near the center of the archipelago. It was once the heart of Kizhva culture, until the Empire of Wamato invaded and conquered the Manmosu Islands in 3840. Seeking a strategic naval outpost, the Empire claimed Chowinga for itself. After several Kizhva uprisings, the Imperial authorities ordered the island cleared entirely for military use, forcing the Kizhva to relocate to the surrounding islands, where they now live in overcrowded settlements and struggle with limited resources.

The Empire maintains a single port on Chowinga, known as Shinan. It has a small permanent population responsible for operating the port and shipyard. Shinan's primary purpose is to support ships of the Imperial Navy that patrol the southernmost reaches of Imperial influence, offering facilities for resupply and repair. In the century since its founding, Shinan has earned a reputation among the Yanjin as the most remote posting in the Empire - a place to send those whom the Imperial court prefers to forget.

Notable Spirits

In preparation for the invasion of Chowinga, the Empire sent the Kyōai Reiji - practitioners of Kōdō who study the gods of foreign lands - to identify and account for the island's deities before the attack. They discovered that the Manmosu Islands were inhabited by the ancestors of the Kizhva, whose spirits dwelled in every field and stone, interceding with a greater spirit that resided within the island's Dream Echo.

Through their study of Kizhva spirits and traditions, the Kyōai Reiji devised a rite to seal these spirits within the Dream, preventing them from interfering with the Yanjin invasion. The rite succeeded, and since then the islands have remained bereft of their spirits. With Chowinga now largely uninhabited, no new spirits or gods have taken root there, while the ancestral spirits of the Kizhva have slowly faded within the Dream - their stories lost to death, their names unremembered and unsung.

Even those who have not been forgotten remain sealed away from the Physical Realm, able only to visit their people in dreams, unable to exert any influence upon the islands in the waking world. Like other spiritually barren places, Chowinga carries an emptiness perceptible to those attuned to such presences - as if stepping into a house that should be full of life, but has stood untenanted for far too long.