The story
Fiction and adapted settings written by Akitsora Gaming for this title, including invented dialogue and events. This is not a historical or folklore reference. The rules and specification tables define the gameplay and math.
The sun was not taken back by force. She was coaxed out — the gods hung a mirror outside the door, and then they began to dance.
I. The sun and the storm
In Takamagahara, light has an owner. Amaterasu was born of Izanagi's left eye, and the sun goes where she looks. Susanoo was born of the breath from his nose, and when he opens his mouth the sea gets up. One source, two kinds of weather: one of them ripens the rice, the other pulls it out of the ground.
The myth never says which of them is right. It says only this — a world without storms is not a better world, only a drier one.
II. The rock cave
Susanoo went too far. He broke the paddy banks and wrecked the weaving hall, and Amaterasu covered her face, withdrew into the rock cave of heaven and closed the stone door behind her.
So the world lost its light. Eight million gods gathered outside with nothing to offer: the stars were not bright enough, torches did not last, crops stopped where they stood, and calamity spread across the fields like water.
Nobody could open that door. It had been closed from the inside — the light comes back only if the one inside wants it back.
III. The mirror
What the gods came up with was not a battering ram. It was a festival. They hung a mirror on a sakaki tree outside the cave, lit the bonfires, and set Ame-no-Uzume dancing on an upturned tub. The gods roared, and the laughter broke against the stone door in waves.
Inside, Amaterasu heard it and could not make sense of it. I am not there. Should the world not be in mourning?
She pushed the door open a crack. In that instant the mirror threw her own light back into her face — she had never seen light like it, and for a moment she stared. That was the moment the door was pulled wide.
Which is why the mirror counts from anywhere on this board. It never won by lining up: it only has to be there, and the light comes back. 4 of them lit at once and the cave stands open — the next 15 spins all happen inside a dance that has not yet broken up, and 3 more before it ends holds the door open another 5.
IV. The serpent and the sword
Exiled from heaven, Susanoo came down beside the Hii river in Izumo and met an old couple weeping. Of their eight daughters, seven had already gone to Yamata-no-Orochi.
Eight heads, eight tails, cypress and cedar growing along its back, its belly split and red. Susanoo called for strong sake, gave each head a vat of its own, and took the heads off one by one while the thing slept. On the last tail the blade chipped — there was another sword inside it.
That sword is Kusanagi. He gave it to his sister, and that was the peace.
So the most valuable symbol on the board is the serpent, and the second is the sword taken out of its body. In this myth the worst disaster and the best prize were always two sides of the same thing.
V. The magatama
Before the peace there was an oath, sworn across the river of heaven. Amaterasu took her brother's sword, bit it and breathed out three goddesses; Susanoo took the magatama from her hair and her arm, bit them and breathed out five gods.
From then on the comma-shaped bead was not an ornament. It was a piece of a god, broken off.
In the game it is the orb with a number on it. Susanoo's lightning brings it down onto the board, where it joins no cluster, takes no symbol's place and changes the shape of nothing. It does exactly one thing: it makes a win that has already happened larger — ×2 to ×20.
With the cave open it is harsher still — ×2 to ×500, accumulating for the whole feature and never resetting. The longer the dance outside goes on, the brighter the light.
VI. Everyone else on the board
The torii is a doorway. One step past it and you are no longer in the human world, which is why it stands on the board rather than around it.
The fox mask belongs to Inari's messenger, who takes in the rice on the god's behalf and keeps the god's accounts.
Red orb, amethyst, amber, lapis, jade — the five stones are offerings laid before the shrine. One of them alone is worth little. Offer enough of them and the god says yes.
Which happens to be the rule of this game as well: they do not have to line up, there only have to be 8 or more of them.
VII. The weather has not stopped
Amaterasu went back to the sky and Susanoo stayed in Izumo, and each of them kept their own ground. The quarrel was never settled; it only changed form. There is light by day and thunder at night, and the rice ripens either way.
Six reels and five rows of that unfinished weather. Lightning on the left, sunlight on the right, and in between, whatever has not been decided yet.