Ishiyama the Immovable Lore: Official Story
For centuries before the Second Great War began, Siroth’s forces raided the length and breadth of Teleria. The Dawnlands were struck repeatedly, and the people of Yakai built castles as well as threw up walls around their cities and towns unlike ever before. Even with these fortifications, many fell over the decades, overrun by Demonspawn and their mortal thralls, or the Undead that arose after every battle.
One city that was never lost was Nankofura. First it was little more than a strong castle upon a steep hill. As refugees fled Demonspawn and Undead, its population grew. Houses were built and more walls were constructed to encircle them. A decade before the Second Great War began, a young man became ruler: Ishiyama, who later became known as ‘the Immovable’ for his mastery of defending against sieges. He was already a skilled commander, having crushed the ‘shuffle-march horde’ outside Nankofura using his ‘lapping wave’ strategy, as well as breaking two separate Demonspawn hosts, each with minimal losses. Ishiyama ordered the digging of more ditches and the raising of more walls and towers on the day he was named leader. Furthermore he issued a decree that all able-bodied train each week in combat, medicine, or as part of gangs who would move water, food, and weapons wherever they were needed most in the event of a siege.
By the end of the Second Great War, Ishiyama was a wizened warrior, a man of few words with no tolerance for nonsense, time-wasting, or excuses. He was a harsh-but-fair leader, quick to punish failure and criminality, and harboring a deep hatred of nepotism or preferential treatment. He once had his own son lashed two-dozen times for pulling his troops from a wall section too early during a Demonspawn attack. The maneuver led to not just the loss of that wall but adjoining towers, and created a domino effect where other commanders following his lead carried out their orders too early. Ishiyama was forced to respond, deploying reserves needed elsewhere, which nearly risked the loss of the entire Moon Gate.
Ishiyama was famed for knowing precisely when and where to rain arrows and bolts upon the foe and where to plant fields of caltrops and punji sticks to channel his enemies. His most crucial skill was in knowing when to cede ground and when to strike back. Time after time, Demonspawn who thought they were on the cusp of victory, having secured walls and gatehouses and stormed breaches, found themselves defeated by sallying forces. Ishiyama had secret tunnels honeycomb through neighboring hills through which his warriors could race. They would emerge only once the attackers had advanced past the concealed exits, so that they were then surrounded by warriors to their rear and a rallying garrison within Nankofura. Not only that, but the Demonspawn would be cut off from their artillery and supply trains, which Ishiyama’s warriors seized.
Ishiyama nonetheless recognized that plans could only get him so far. Freak events could upset them, and he had to be ready. He learned to build multiple contingencies into his plans and never made any single commander, regiment, or artillery piece a lynchpin for any given strategy. This was a hard-won lesson. In one siege earlier in the Second Great War, he needed to light a ring of oil outside Nankofura on fire. Only one catapult had the position and range to reach it with a flaming shot. It was destroyed shortly after the Demonspawn assault began when it took a direct hit from a trebuchet that, by sheer luck, passed through the firing slit in the armored shielding around it.
Though a master of strategy and planning, Ishiyama was no stranger to combat, and was a formidable fighter. His weapon, a heavy flail known as the Burning Comet, symbolized his ability to reach foes at a distance and – when the steel balls and chain wrapped around ankles and necks – trap them. The Comet was a flaming blur in the heat of battle, Ishiyama smashing skulls or bringing foes crashing to the ground with every swing and whirl.
Over the course of the Second Great War, Ishiyama became embittered. Though he held his territory without fail, he often sent for aid, which rarely came, and meant many more of his people died than may have needed to. His eldest daughter – Tsuru – felt even deeper rage than him. After the Arbiter came to Ishiyama in his waning years to offer him a Shard, the young woman became ruler of Nankofura. When Lady Mikage began her takeover of Yakai, Tsuru was herself often asked for aid by other rulers of Yakai, which she denied out of spite. Her refusals only sped Jorogumo’s seizure of the Dawnlands.