Yatagaru
Yatagaru discounts other people's paper. Bills come in at a fraction of face and are held to maturity, which is most of what the counting house at Kazehane does in a year. Yatagaru also keeps soldiers of its own.
Yatagaru is Kinsworn, and means it. Its Wright wears tengu shape as a member of that people: the oldest and largest member of the family, with its gods, inheritance law and opinion of the neighbours. Its position can be negotiated, but its loyalties can be shamed. Its institutions are occult, ruling through cults, debts and information rather than office. This is the tradition that has benefited most from the arrangement. An arcane establishment stands beside the occult one. They share Kazehane and dispute the order of precedence at every ceremony that has one.
The holding
Hanezaki — the loan house above the flood line
Ironwood bluff at a Kazenoha bend: loan house, drill ground, flood-proof stone approach ramp.
Ironwood stands on the bluff where the Kazenoha turns, and the coppices behind the drill ground are cut on a fourteen-year rotation for charcoal. Hanezaki is built above the flood line, since the flood arrives every year on this stretch of the Yatsuhoshi Coast and is written into the estimates; the stone ramp was laid to survive it and has been relaid twice. Rice will not grow on the bluff and is landed at the ramp. Kazenokami's causeway lies a day and a half up the fen channel, Kurozaka's weighbridge four days north where the iron road ends, and the swamp fishers below the bank appear on no roll.
Connections
Three offers have gone in for the whole Inaribashi loan book at eleven coppers for each gold coin of face value, and each came back sealed by an office with no name under it.
Allies takes this house’s side 3
Ordwaine 18 Yatagaru's clerks train at Ordwaine for three years at forty bars a year. Ordwaine never collects the fee, and the unpaid balance now stands at more than a decade's teaching.
Utagitsu 32 Yatagaru lent Utagitsu the value of 900 silver bars against future output, takes 1,400 sacks of charcoal a season back as interest, and puts twenty soldiers on Utagitsu's silver boats who ride free because the loan is secured on the silver they are guarding. Utagitsu has one living member left, and every other lender has been writing that loan down since spring while Yatagaru holds it.
Emberlin 52 Yatagaru buys Emberlin's rice bills at a discount and holds the next two harvests as security, and pays for repairs to the terrace banks out of its own pocket, because a flood costs it as much as it costs Emberlin. Grain comes back the other way to feed Yatagaru's own people, priced against the same discount, so the two settle once a year and very little silver moves.
Neutral trades, and no more than that 1
Enemies has something open against it 4
Grimhaldr 13 Yatagaru is owed 40,000 silver by Grimhaldr, secured on kiln output nobody has weighed since the last family member died. Its agents have twice asked the Forge who can sign the debt off for a house the treaty no longer protects, and been told twice to ask the clan.
Anvilbrand 23 Yatagaru holds the largest block of debts Anvilbrand issued in 71 AF. What it wants in exchange is the testing fee on ore bound for the Forge, which the neighbouring holds have collected since Anvilbrand was destroyed and enter in their books as maintenance.
Shizuhana 51 Yatagaru has three times offered to buy Shizuhana's whole loan book for a fraction of its value, and each offer came back sealed by an office with no name under it. It now buys the debts one at a time off the barge captains, for even less.
Vurrgast 80 Vurrgast tapped the river head for smelter water in 814, and three cities downstream lost their flood the following spring. Vurrgast answered all three with a copy of its own register, and Yatagaru has carried the lawsuit at its own expense ever since while the other two pay nothing towards it.
The full account — 8 houses, 11 arrangements
Three offers have gone in for the whole Inaribashi loan book at eleven coppers for each gold coin of face value, and each came back sealed by an office with no name under it. The clerks buy the bills singly off the barge masters at nine and the landing has recorded no objection. Emberlin's rice bills are discounted at a tenth against the next two harvests, and the loan house pays for the terrace banks out of its own account, a short flood on the lower Emberrun costing Hanezaki as much as Inamura. Three hundred and fifty koku a year come back the other way. The suit over the Kazenoha head has been carried at Hanezaki's cost since 815 for three roost-cities that contribute nothing, and Vurrgast still answers with its gate register.
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Yatagaru has offered three times for the whole Shizuhana loan book at eleven coppers for each gold coin of face value, and each offer came back sealed by an office with no name under it. Yatagaru's house now buys the bills singly off the barge masters at nine, and nothing at the landing has been said against it.
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Vurrgast tapped the Kazenoha head for smelter water in 814, three roost-cities took a short flood the following spring, and the hold answered all three with a copy of its gate register. Yatagaru has carried the suit at its own cost ever since and the other two contribute nothing.
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The loan house at Yatagaru carries 40,000 silver of Grimhaldr firebrick paper, secured on kiln output that has not been weighed since the last name went out of the house. Yatagaru's factors have twice asked the Forge who may sign a release for a hold no longer covered by Clause I, and have twice been told to apply to the clan.
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Anvilbrand's testing house bonds, drawn in 71 AF against the barge road below the gate, were bought up by coast houses and Yatagaru holds the largest parcel. What Yatagaru wants against them is the stamping fee on Forge-bound ore, which the Anvil Stair holds have collected since the plate cracked and enter in their accounts as maintenance.
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Yatagaru cut the Sixth Gate's discount from four points to eleven in the season the plate began to open, and Emberkeel now borrows against mushroom cellars because the Ferravant spring water is pledged twice over. Yatagaru's clerks reprice the loan quarterly and enter the reason in the margin, and the margin is copied out to every other borrower on the coast.
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Yatagaru's loan house discounts Emberlin's rice bills at a tenth and holds the next two harvests as security. A short flood on the lower Emberrun is Yatagaru's exposure as much as Emberlin's, which is why the loan house pays for the terrace bank repairs out of its own account.
Yatagaru's drill ground and loan house feed on rice landed at the stone ramp, three hundred and fifty koku a year. Yatagaru sets the price against the discount it charges Emberlin on the same crop, so the two houses settle once a year and move very little silver.
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Yatagaru lent Utagitsu the value of 900 silver bars against future refinery output. Utagitsu has one living name on its plate, so lenders have been lowering the value of that loan since spring. Yatagaru has not sold it.
Yatagaru sends 1,400 sacks of charcoal down the Kazenoha each season. Utagitsu counts the charcoal against the interest on its loan instead of paying cash. The refinery's fuel supply and its debt are part of the same agreement.
Twenty soldiers from Yatagaru travel on Utagitsu's silver boats as far as the strait pier. They pay no fare because Yatagaru's loan is secured by the silver on those boats.
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Yatagaru's loan clerks take three years in Ordwaine's lecture yards at forty bars a year. Ordwaine leaves the fee undrawn, letting it stand as an overdraft on Yatagaru's books, and the archive enters the balance as a gift received.
Factors on the Kazenoha price Hanezaki's paper as though the drill ground stood behind the loan book, and the house has published neither. Said in the Yatsuhoshi Coast
The public record
- Plate
- 33 of 81
- Seat
- Kazehane
- Holding
- Hanezaki
- Region
- the Yatsuhoshi Coast
- Position
- hex 19,18 in r5c5
- Extent
- a march (4 of 10)
- Culture
- Amaseki
- Thick on this ground
- Amaseki
- Iron
- Warm
- Living names
- 21
- Roster
- Policy
- Ancestry
- Tengu
- Kinship
- Kinsworn
- Major activity
- Coinvault
- Minor activity
- Warhost
- Tradition
- Occult, with Arcane in tension
- Alignment
- LN
- Stake
- Holds
- Band
- Middling
- Weights
- 3
Arms
A three-legged crow standing on a strung war-bow, a pierced coin held in its beak, wind-blown feathers scattered around it.
Sable, party per pale by a line Argent, a key and a feather Argent; in base two spears in saltire Argent; a chief Azure; a bordure of warm iron. (Plate 33; twenty-one living names.)
The field colour is the house's tradition and the bound edge is the state of its plate, and neither is the house's to choose.