Each of you are traveling to Shiro Matsu to attend the wedding of Ikeda Akimitsu to Otomo Hisayo. Being sent by your respective daimyo to serve as representatives at this wedding is a great honor for young samurai, and you should feel properly grateful for the opportunity to serve your lord so prominently.<br/><br/>The journey to Shiro Matsu is uneventful, and you reach the castle on time, right at the start of the Cherry Blossom Festival, a major spring festival which celebrates the cycle of life, death, and rebirth – a suitable context for a wedding.<br/><br/>The wide rice fields of Lion Clan lands are green with the year’s first planting, peasants toiling silently in the paddies under the warm spring sunshine. After a long journey, you have finally reached the castle of the Matsu family. Shiro Matsu’s mighty walls are over a hundred feet high, dwarfing the teeming city below. Banners hang on poles along the walls, fluttering in the gentle spring breeze. It would be inappropriate to mention it, but even the harshest Lion or Crab would enjoy this pleasant day, the first day of the Cherry Blossom Festival.<br/><br/>With your travel papers authorizing your presence here in proper order, you are admitted with a minimum of questioning from the Lion troops who watch the gates. Inside the city, you can see large paper lanterns hanging from all of the buildings, painted in bright colors with kanji of blessings from the Matsu ancestors.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC</div><div class="spoiler_body">Cherry Blossom Festival <br/>Roll Int / Lore (Theology) TN 10 or Int / Lore (History) at TN 15.<br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Success will grant the following info</div><div class="spoiler_body">The three-day festival is a celebration of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, and has been observed since the days of Hantei II (Hantei Genji, the “Shining Prince”) who supposedly found his eternal love Oborozukiyo during a cherry-blossom viewing party. The festival is considered a time favored for romance and marriage, as well as a good time to pray to the Kami of Agriculture, Kuroshin, whose daughter sometimes descends from the Heavens to inhabit cherry trees.<br/><br/>Although the Cherry Blossom Festival does not carry the same tradition of peace as the autumn Setsuban Festival, it is still considered quite inauspicious to spill blood during these days of celebration. The Matsu family, despite its warlike nature, is intensely traditional and reveres the ancient ways of the Empire; all Lion, therefore, go unarmed during the festival except for personal bodyguards, magistrates, and the patrols which ensure law and order. Those from other Clans who carry weapons openly will be sternly reminded that this festival must be honored and respected.</div></div><br/><br/>The Ikeda Family<br/>Roll Int / Lore (History) TN 15 (TN10 for Lions)<br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Success gives the following</div><div class="spoiler_body">The Ikeda are the primary cavalry force of the Lion Clan, and were founded shortly after the return of the Unicorn to the Empire, over five hundred years ago. A certain Matsu Ikeda was fostered to the Unicorn in order to study their barbaric ways and learn their strange mounted tactics. After several years he returned to Lion lands and trained Matsu warriors in the Shinjo family’s techniques. The Emperor was so impressed with the eventual demonstration of the new mounted warfare that he granted Matsu Ikeda the right to form his own family, ensuring his teachings would not to be lost.<br/><br/>Despite these prestigious origins, the Ikeda family has never achieved much prominence within the Lion Clan. To the Lion, cavalry will always be a mere supplement to the true way of warfare, fought by infantry. Bringing a wedding gift associated to horsemanship will go down well.</div></div><br/><br/>Also have a think about the present you will be bringing. If anyone needs help with suitable ideas, let me know. If you want to spend a bit of time in the city before arriving at the Ikeda household, that's fine, especially as you may not know where it is :) You may also be able to find more info on the Ikeda, or the general city gossip. This will require Awareness / Courtier rolls<br/></div></div>