Bone Flower Ancestor

Rumors surround Grandmother Mushin’s sudden appearance, but no one knows why a Song of the Shadow Ancestor now makes her home in San Francisco’s Japan Center — or at least if anyone does, they haven’t said. Mushin, the Honorable Grandmother, merely arrived one night several years ago at Lord Hino’s door with only a tiny handful of retainers to carry her palanquin. The daimyo of the Floating World hosted the Honorable Grandmother and granted her request for a place to dwell within his small domain. Since then she has kept largely to herself, only occasionally accepting audiences and leaving the Wan Kuei of San Francisco and Nippon to gossip about her presence. The gaki know that the Honorable Grandmother Mushin took the Second Breath well over three hundred years ago, and that she spent nearly all of those years in Nippon until recently. Everything else is only rumor and speculation, though there is no lack of it. Stories claim Grandmother was a beautiful woman once, that she is a fearsome sorceress, that she actually traveled widely borne by ghosts of the Yin World, and that she studied the ancient arts of necromancy. Some believe her arrival involves the turbulent storm that wracks the Yin World. Others think she intends to keep watch over local gaki , either to keep them in line for the Quincunx or to advise them when the time comes to deal with the arrogant New Promise Mandarinate. There are even whispers that the Honorable Grandmother comes hunting for akuma , or that she left the home islands became of rumors intoning she was in league with the Yama Kings. Since her arrival, Grandmother Mushin grants few audiences. She speaks with Lord Hino and Sakurai Mitsumune on occasion. Most recently, she met with Cloud Mandarin Lili Zhou (p. 82), who heard rumors of the Ancestor’ s presence in the city. The two met for nearly an entire night, with Madame Zhou leaving shortly before sunrise. What passed between them, no one knows, but some point out that Lili Zhou seems to have redoubled her efforts to become San Francisco’ s Ancestor.