Yodotai

The Yodotai were an expansionistic foreign Empire that had recently reached as far as Medinat al-Salaam. Their interests and intentions towards Rokugan were unknown.

Yodotai Culture
The Yodotai were an ancient and powerful Empire located west of Rokugan, across the vastness of Yakamo's Heart. They were a proud people, defined by expansion and conquest. Their civilization comprised the best of countless different conquered peoples, each assimilated into the totality of the Yodotai Empire. The Yodotai were ruled by an Emperor, who was advised in turn by a Senate formed of elected representatives from every province under Yodotai rule. Though their military was fierce, the Yodotai's true strength lied in their ability to encourage conquered nations to accept the fair rule and technological advancements the Yodotai had to offer.

Conquerors
The Yodotai Empire was a vast and powerful nation intent on the idea that they were directed by divine mandate to rule over all lands that existed. Over the past thousand years they had slowly but steadily moved closer to Rokugan. They had met hundreds of cultures in their inexorable march and had conquered them all. The Yodotai were merciful and just in their rule, but they demanded complete and utter subservience from their subjects. All must submit to the Yodotai Empire, or die.

The Yodotai move slowly when they conquered a new land. First, they sent out mercenaries as scouts and spies into the target land. Over the course of several years, the mercenaries gained the trust of the people and learned their secrets. Once they had fully analyzed the people's weaknesses, they sent those notes back to the main Yodotai army. Few armies stood a chance against the might of the Yodotai forces when all of their secrets had been exposed.

Military Structure
The Yodotai were renowned for their military organization and techniques fielding vast legions with specialist troops ranging from light infantry scouts to heavily armored cavalry, filled with the military knowledge of a hundred cultures. Like the Rokugani, the Yodotai seemed to venerate the warrior ethos and their own ancestors. It was said that the greatest of the Yodotai warriors sometime appeared to fight by the side of their descendants. The most common type of Yodotai warrior was the Yodotai Legionnaire.

Nobility and War
Machinations rarely spilled blood unless a noble was foolish enough to attempt a coup. They never succeed, and that noble's family was forever cast down for their arrogance. Yodotai soldiers only fought foreign enemies. They fought inside their lands when citizens from their newly earned lands revolt. The Yodotai did not give them a second chance, destroying every remnant of the rebellion.

Religious Beliefs
The Yodotai believed that those who died at sea were dragged into a hellish realm beneath the waters, where their soul would never be free to join their ancestors. As a result, they only rarely ventured across the seas.

Beginning of the World
When the world began it was a dark and murky place. Nothing existed except the heavens and a vast cloud of potential that drifted below that blessed place. The Goddess Terra developed out of this cloud, the mother Earth, she who sustained them. Terra felt lonely in the emptiness and using her magic created Caelus the Sky to keep her company Caelus and Terra loved together and made a family of gods and goddesses to live in the heavens. She created the trees, the hills, the grass, the beasts that grazed in the forests, and the man, to marvel in her works. Caelus obliged her whimsy and created the clouds, the wind, and the rain to please her. She laughed in pure joy, and her voice echoed. The sound itself was magic, and it created the truths of the world. Loyalty. Justice. Love. War.

The Ten Gods
Ten sons and daughters of Earth and Sky. The names were not know, it was forbidden to know the names of the gods. The gods had their link to immortality severed permanently by the father. They fell from the sky and most did not survive the impact. The gods might have died, but they did not leave the Yodotai without guidance.

Magic
The Yodotai did not use magic; instead the spirits of their fallen fight on the battlefield, killing their enemies and blocking the effects of spells.

Hanif
The Hanif knew the Yodotai were entirely unreasonable, and that was why they had left the nascent Yodotai Empire centuries ago.

Yodotai in the Burning Sands
Fresh from their newly independent Empire beyond the western mountains, a Yodotai exploratory force had arrived in the Jewel of the Desert despite insurmountable odds and the efforts of the children of the smokeless fire, the jinn. The Yodotai were led in circles in the Burning Sands following the Jinns, who expected the invaders would drop following their own tracks. A Ra'Shari, Shagala, was sent by the Ra'Shari leader, the Living Memory and guided them to their gipsy caravan. They were saved to die in the sands. They Yodotai were looking for something they lost long ago.

Yodotai near Rokugan
Despite their fear of sea travel, a Yodotai "scouting party" (a large army by Rokugani standards) lost at sea established a colony north of Medinaat al-Salaam roughly fifty years ago. These colonists had spent the time since their arrival eagerly studying the foreign lands where they now found themselves, as well as searching for a way out.

Erba'a Alliance
The Moto Tar-Khan Kiyoshi built a powerful Horde. He intented on storming Medinat al-Salaam to end the rule of the Immortal Caliph Hanan Talibah and her Senpet allies. His forces were soon joined by the Yodotai and Ra'Shari. The combined Horde (now known as the Erba'a Alliance), also swelled its ranks with many former slaves of the Senpet, now hell-bent on revenge, the Hanif and the Rokugani Scorpion. In 1132 the alliance besieged and broke the walls of Medinaat Al-Salaam in the Shattering of the Jewel, but did not seize it. Its citizens themselves broke free from the Caliph's reign of terror. It was the second time the Yodotai had been defeated on the battlefield.

Yodotai Invasion
The Yodotai empire crushed the Senpet Empire in a lengthy and bloody 20 years war, from 1140 to 1160. The Senpet was absorbed by the Yodotai Empire, but about half of its most elite forces went into hiding and led a guerrilla war against the Yodotai. In the Medinaat Al-Salaam, surviving Senpet leaders such as Kesseth, plotted against the invaders, hiding within the local Senpet population, a mixed of refugees, Yodotai collaborators and families settled from the time of Immortal Caliph.

Medinaat al-Salaam
The Yodotai held a permanent garrison in Medinaat al-Salaam.

Yodotai at Rokugan
Phyrrus reached Rokugan seeking the prophet Duqaq. After he returned his honor guard left behind in the Khol Wall, at the orders of the Unicorn Clan.

Yodotai Language

 * Bellum - War

Known Yodotai Champions

 * Aurelian