The year of the dragon isnt over yet, here is some Shingyoku headcanon lore:
For Shingyoku I have a deity (design based on the "yin yang orb form") and two shrine officiants (based on the "human-like forms").
This post is a follow-up of this one:
I made this as a little introduction to my Shingies's personalities headcanons. This is a post for those who wished to know about it because
Shingyoku, the deity of the shrine of borders's pond, was in a deep slumber and had no body of their own until the arrival of two devotees which allowed them to enter the physical world of the living on January 1st [1846]. Shingyoku then consideres this day as their birthday.
Shingyoku is usually away all year round travelling back and forth between underworlds using the Shrine of Borders's gates as nexus. But on January 1st, they pay a visit at the shrine; being a kami however, the common human's eyes cant see them, a deep fog spreading rather warns of their arrival (using their weather-control ability).
A small tempura rice bowl makes a good offering (thank Shingyoku for protecting the gates).
Shingyoku's birthday and visit would later coincides with the new year's festivities after the adoption to the gregorian calendar during the Meiji era, such as the "hatsumode" tradition (also created arround that era), when people would visit shrines or temples to make wishes for the new year.
Shingyoku's deep fog turned the Shrine of Borders as a fairly unpopular spot to do such tradition as it would blocks any sunlight ("Hatsuhinode", witnessing the first sunset of the year/importance of sun deity Amaterasu). However Shingyoku is a relatively whimsical deity, and later conflicted with Amaterasu, so refuses to change anything about this. This trivia also isnt the roots of the Shrine of Borders's financial struggles.
I made this as a little introduction to my Shingies's personalities headcanons. This is a post for those who wished to know about it because I cant recall making a proper post for that. Orochi and Toru are personal names I give to "the human-like forms" of the Touhou HRtP boss Shingyoku. Fair warning were very much entering OC territory here.
Or rather, this is a resumed introduction. I wont go into details too much here, as Id prefer to share it in a different format. For 2025, Ill introduce it through a series of posts starting from the very beginning of this story, each part with a drawing to go with it, because I think it will be better rather than one post with a massive wall of text.
My direction for Shingyoku is to do a mix of the "2 distinct entities" and "same person/shapeshifter" routes. Usually headcanons pick one of the two takes. I came up with a story which is very headcanon heavy and can be read by people who know nothing about Touhou as it barely refers to its codes or established figures.
(Its important I first state that they lived during edo Japan (early to mid 1800) and not Gensokyo.)
Orochi is from an upper class family. Her family were merchants from west Europe who found success and settled down in Japan before strict laws established regarding oversea traffic. Being the 2nd child, the focus of attention was pushed onto her older brother who would later lead the family. Orochi spent her early childhood raised by her retired great grandfather who gave her a taste for adventures telling of his past oversea travels. He would however pass away of old age, and Orochi would get entrusted to a shrine her family has a long, great partnership with, the "Shrine of Borders", which is the central location of this story, the shrine getting this name due to its location next to mountains speculated as housing entrances to underworlds. Her family often sending funds to the shrine, as their connection had started decades ago at the contruction of large gates said to prevent intervention of the supernatural from said underworlds.
Toru's backstory is long and complicated, as he's a part of the shinto god of the moon Tsukuyomi who landed on Earth, and the unfolding of events which led to this happening needs a post of its own since it dives a lot into shinto mythology. But basically, he landed on the grounds of an isolated fraudulent shrine led by fanatics, and ended up running away with a miko who had already questionned their doings. But later on, due to how harsh life would be at this time for a single adult and a child in the countryside, she wouldnt be able to provide him care and entrusted him to a shrine, which coincidentally, was the Shrine of Borders.
Both of them arrived at the shrine at about the same time (they were 8 years old). Toru was adopted by the shrine's head priest, Orochi was raised in a nearby village by retired mikos, but they got their traditional training at the shrine together. They quickly became very close friends (even if they fought a lot at first).
They underwent their initiation rite in their early teen age. They would communicate for the first time with a deity, "Shingyoku", who claimed to have been in a deep slumber for a very long time, the arrival of the pair wakening it. Shingyoku had no body of its own, but the pair would allow it to join the physical world of the living once they'd each reached enlightement. Orochi and Toru would report it to the head priest, who wasnt familiar with the name "Shingyoku", the Shrine of Borders having a long history of struggles communicating with the local god. In this story, Shingyoku makes it clear that its the deity of the shrine's pond and not the borders gates despite what HRtP make you theorize due to the boss's location; in this take the gates are purely human made. Because Shingyoku had no body of its own, it would try to possess people to use their bodies as a vessel, but because it had only weak powers, it could only possess for a short amount of time like possessing Orochi or Toru to communicate with them, or small animals, its favorite being the pair's pet koi fish from the shrine's pond.
For a couple years, the story focuses on Orochi's and Toru's daily life and duties at the shrine, but is relatively mundane, as I said is detached from Touhou codes and doesnt take place in Gensokyo, so it rather refers to history at that time with a small hint of fantasy with occasional intervention of the supernatural, youkais's appearance following more how they were depicted in art of the time. People also dont have magical abilities, there are no such things as bullet battle and spell cards. Orochi is skilled at some martial art due to a personal intensive physical training; Toru acquire healing abilities only due to his godly nature. They would share tasks and complete each others with what theyre best at.
Once in their early twenties, Orochi was summoned back to her family's home to lead as her older brother perished in battle (indicative to more events happening at the time approaching end edo). She would take Toru as her spouse, but as they would grow so much stress from the marriage's and leading's expectation coupled with the shut in life, they would end up running away without a word 4 years later.
They would escape and live isolated in the mountains close to the Shrine of Borders so they could be remotely close from Shingyoku, where they would dedicate their lives serving their god.
A decade later, they would reach enlightement, but passed away as their mortal bodies couldnt handle it (and the harsh living conditions).
Shingyoku, still using the koi fish's body as a vessel, swam up the mountains to reach the pair whose spirits parted from their bodies and fused into one. Shingyoku absorbed the fused spirit, acquiring the pair's powers, allowing it to transform into a dragon before setting the pair's body on fire (to spare them a trip to the Yomi, the "shinto hell", which has a capital importance later in my whole story but isnt part of Orochi's and Toru's story).
*I use "fusion" as an umbrella term, but as explained here, its not a straight up fusion of the 2 people's body fusing into one. Here the deity and the 2 shrine officiants are distinct people, the officiants serving the deity, and the deity later absorbing the officiants's spirits to acquire their powers after reaching enlightement. Shingyoku the deity shares no DNA with Orochi and Toru, the body of the koi fish, which then transforms into a dragon, ended up being its official DNA. The separation is capital for the following part of the story which focuses on Shingyoku's life after joining the physical world of the living. But this will be for an other post, as the focus here was on the miko and the priest.
This is posted for the sake of archiving some "low effort" art of Shingyoku that I did before. Most were selected from bigger posts I deleted as it included very outdated content I wished to not be visible public but still liked some parts so I grouped them in one (hope it makes sense)
Most come from a Q&A I did outside this place. Other are misc. This includes some extra headcanon designs in case this is confusing. Being my favorite my goal is still to draw Shingyoku in a good variety of contexts so that include content bound to fairly heavy headcanon writings.
For now I dont have every single one of them to share individually outside of the tsukimi one (top right):
Miss miko and mr priest celebrating moon viewing after work;
I thought of alt outfits they would wear for fall. I have ideas for other se
