And started working on the tools. Displayed here are what are called the “Monkey Scrolls,” or “Hanging Monkey Scrolls” (The latter is so named because of where and how they are located in the library of a temple).
[in this universe] The Monkey Scrolls and their respective powers were originally together as one, powerful weapon, which, during the time of its separation, belonged to a monkey warrior born through very obscure means. With the inherent properties of earth, water, wind, and fire, the staff was capable of a diverse range of feats. The Light Scroll (pictured next to the character standing at about half her height) is what provides the shape and stability of the weapon and its ability to utilize the other 4 scrolls together, and thus the weapon cannot be reforged without it, as it is the conduit for the fluid combination of all 4 elemental scrolls.
The four Elemental Scrolls that now exist come with their own respective powers which made the Monkey Warrior’s staff such a revered and powerful weapon. The Fire Scroll turns one’s own soul into a tangible, manipulative form of energy, allowing one to use it either as an extension of themselves or as a protective force. The Water Scroll carries with it a pristine, cleansing state of water that unclogs and purifies one’s mental and bodily impurities and obstructions, allowing one to quickly focus and develop their physical and magic skills. With its rungs shaped like the tips of a bottle, the water can also be consumed, the special water containing special healing properties that cleanse any illness, and prevent new ones from taking root. However, unless tethered to the Light Scroll, the Water Scroll retains a finite amount, and often takes years to replenish itself in water on its own. The Wind Scroll adds a near weightlessness to one’s physical form and loosens the power of gravity on them, granting them superior jumping ability and air superiority. It also grants supernatural senses by attuning one’s own senses to the world around them by using the five senses to achieve a deeper connection to nature through the air currents, and under the use of one who has mastered it, minor manipulation of the wind itself (This is how the Monkey Warrior was able to create clouds, and subsequently the nimbus with which he used to travel through the air). Finally, the Earth Scroll utilizes the power of resistance and durability, using the various earthen materials of the world to render one’s physical body with extremely resistant properties, causing even the sharpest of swords to break against one’s surface and the most robust of weapons to dent or chip piece by piece with each strike. This power however can only be used while standing still, and unlike the other scrolls, the Earth scroll must always remain in possession for this ability to be utilized.
The rest is just some more lore in regards to how the scrolls came to be, but yeah...I came up with the scrolls about...well now it would be about several years ago at this point when I first did this concept in an RP on iScribble. But after years of RPing with a few people the concept along with the place I put them in has become an integral part of some of my bigger lore that I’ve decided to write out in a state that is more connected to some of my other concepts here. It’s also in preparation for closing out the last bits of Ia/Ai’s story as I create all her tools/weapons for her character sheet. There will be more down the line but yeah, this one was and is fun to do. :D
The Hanging Monkey Scrolls: Lore
When it was believed that the humans might seek and take this power for their own after the Feng Dynasty began to show cracks in its stability and slowly decreasing ability to protect the lands of both where the Monkey Warrior resided in and the land of what the humans call “Onis,” the Monkey Warrior, in recognizing Shizu’s skill and prowess as a warrior and dedication to her protection of these sacred sites upon becoming the ruler of the Feng Dynasty took his weapon and separated it into 5 different sections with the help of a woman named Ia, which become the Monkey Scrolls shown here, in exchange for Shizu’s hairpin, a tool that contained within it’s silver bulb a divine incense that allowed him once before to repair and strengthen her kanabo during her first visit. However, while giving her the 4 elemental scrolls to covertly transport to the Onis, whom each clan would initially be in charge of protecting (The Red Onis protecting the Fire Scroll, the Yellow Onis protecting the Earth Scroll, the Blue the Water Scroll, and the Green the Wind Scroll), the Monkey Warrior kept the fifth, the Light Scroll, for himself. Later establishing a great temple to house himself and the scroll/weapon, known as the Yamayuki Temple, he stood guard over the weapon for centuries, never once falling into the hands of evil. It is not known if he still lives and still guards this final scroll, but no one of yet has been able to penetrate and ascend to the top of the tower that stands looming over the temple into the clouds near the mountains.
After the onset of a large-scale war that created a divide and eventually destroyed what little was left of the Oni and human’s peace accord (due to one of the Red Oni siding with the humans and alienating herself from her clans), the scrolls were in danger once more, and as the Red began to fall, the blue foresaw a threat to the security of all Oni. Sending away the Yellow Oni and her clan, one of the Blue Oni [Sannha] gave them their scroll while the lone Green Oni who was with this clan went with them, bringing with them the water and wind scroll. The Yellow, with the help of some of the Blue, would sneak into the Red’s main encampment and pilfer the Fire Scroll, before making their way to the Yellow, which then they would take the Earth Scroll. Journeying further East, as the Oni clans fell to the onset of the human armies one by one, the remaining clan members of the Yellow Oni made it to the eastern shores, where they resided for a short time until they were forced to sail the seas as the looming threat of human conquest crept closer to them. Upon finding an island, the Yellow Oni and remaining Oni clans settled here along with some humans, from which the people of this island would propagate and create an independent tribe. At some point Ia arrived and intervened when descendants of this clan were targetted by the eventual human groups that came to dominate much of the island in what culminated to become an era of swords and shoguns. Ia ascended to the ranks as one of the lesser female elites of society, allowing her access to the scrolls in which, during the fall of this era she smuggled them away along with a little girl named Eve, and made the long trek back to the Yamayuki Mountains, where they were returned and kept guarded by appointed shrine maidens. Ia then created an access point in the Temple’s library, where she could easily jump back and forth between this place and other areas to maintain an efficient means of ensuring the security of the scrolls.
Though Ia recovered the scrolls, their powers had already had a profound effect on the people that have come into contact with them. One of the Yellow Oni, who was once surrounded by a human military force while attempting to flee with other humans, swallowed the Earth Scroll in an attempt to keep her pursuers from taking it, and it wasn’t until her death some roughly 250+ years later that the scroll and its power could be recovered again; it was the last scroll Ia obtained before leaving, being the most difficult to obtain. By that point the Yellow Oni who swallowed the scroll had propogated a generation that gave birth to others over the years, giving birth to a race of humans that became quickly known for their incredible vitality and even more prominent physical longevity.
The opposing humans who invaded the island had possession of the Fire Scroll for a long time, further bolstering their spirit and solidifying their devotion to the causes founded in their society and the people that upheld them, possibly giving birth to some of the philosophical traditions of their martial arts that continue to be upheld even today.
The Water Scroll was inadvertently exposed to the natural waters present on the island and especially ones that ran from the original Oni homeland’s mountainous peaks to some of the human establishments below and beyond, affecting all who partook of these waters and increasing their resistance to many ailments and allowing them to physically progress. The Well of Wuu-Ra, which resided at the mountaintop of the original Oni homeland, is the most prominent example of this exposure. It is postulated that the alien material that gives the Well of Wuu-Ra its divine effects may have come from the scroll itself.
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