The KNK Lorebook
In the years I've spent developing KNK, I've created a lot of supplemental material for worldbuilding. Not all of these details make it into the story, but I wanted to share them, just in case anyone is as much of a fiend for this stuff as I am.
Everything is organized below into a table of contents of sorts. I've tried to hyperlink relevant topics, kind of like Wikipedia, so you can jump between pages, if you want to. There are also links on each page for the previous and next topic, if you prefer to read chronologically!
I wouldn't have been able to conduct my research over the last five years without a lot of help. Wikipedia has been invaluable for the simple cataloguing of the historical events of the Sengoku period, and is a great starting point for an overview of the era. Sengoku Daimyo provided a lot of important information about daily living, clothing, armor, and a whole lot of other things that you may not get from a standard military history book.
The unfortunate reality of this historical period is that English translations of primary source texts are very few and far between. The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga is the most well-known, and the most readily available, and though it is only one text about one man, it is still an invaluable document. David John Lu's Sources of Japanese History Volume One, Japan Before Tokugawa: Political Consolidation and Economic Growth, 1500-1650, edited by S. Hall, Nagahara Keiji, and Kozo Yamamura, and John A. Ferejohn's War and State Building in Medieval Japan are all great places to read more on the political climate of the period. It's also worth checking out the recommended reading list from r/AskHistorians, found here, though in case of Reddit imploding, I'll list my favorites: William Wayne Farris's Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History and Japan's Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age, Pierre Souyri's The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese Society, Oleg Benesch's Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushidō in Modern Japan, and Karl Friday's Japan Emerging: Premodern History to 1850.
Stylistically, I owe much to the works of some of the greatest musicians, authors, auteurs, and artists; some Japanese, some not. The works of Shikibu Murasaki, Katushika Hokusai, Utagawa Kunisada, Akira Kurosawa, Hiroshi Inagaki, Toshiya Fujita, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Joe Hisaishi, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Shigeru Umebayashi, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Tom Stoppard, Ursula Le Guin, and Hans Zimmer have had an indelible impact on me as a storyteller, and, by extension, on Ko No Kure. I wouldn't want to give the impression that a story rooted in a time long ago is somehow irrelevant to the lives we live today: stories are timeless, art is timeless, and the human impulses that we share are much greater than the differences between us.
Here's how you can add an image:
Here's how to make a list:
- First thing
- Second thing
- Third thing
To learn more HTML/CSS, check out these tutorials!
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?’
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT- POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
Table of Contents
- Map of Raiko and Konohagakure
- The History of Raiko
- The Shinobi System
- Chakra and Ninjutsu
- Units of Measurement
- Clans and Characters
- On Language
- Raiko Fashion
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Title Two
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Title Three
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And Again, a Third Level Heading
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Frankenstein:
How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who abhor me? I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be moved, and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale; when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. But hear me. The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me; listen to me, and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands.