#Four-Branch Faction Comparison and Handles — One Gate, Four Realms

Contents

This document belongs to the front. There are no new rules and no new numbers — what it handles is only the comparison and the handles that cut across the four branches. The body of each branch lives in 02 True History·03 IF-A·04 IF-B·05 IF-C, and for the canon facts and stats of factions, frames, and Treasures, co-02-03·co-07-03·zn13·ex3 take precedence. This document only lays fiction on top of that.

#Table — Four-Branch Faction Comparison

The rows are the five axes the four world-lines share; the columns are how each axis is set differently in each branch. No cell displaces the true history — the true history is merely the single most likely branch, and the three IFs are other world-lines that split off before the gate. Whenever data is needed, canon always takes precedence (co-02-03·co-07-03·zn13·ex3-03-01).

Axis	True History (the most likely branch)	IF-A — If the Sword Craves the Realm	IF-B — If the Yoma Seize the Realm	IF-C — If the Sun Rises Again
The Kagura Domain's seat	The greatest force against the great yoma, yet it does not crave the realm. It withdraws as the shield of the seal and remains a subordinate domain, watched over by whoever achieves unification.	Nobutsuna grips the seal itself as the realm's lever and becomes the ruler of the realm himself. The Kagura shogunate (new) rises, and the authority to open and close the seal becomes rule itself.	So absorbed in the contest for hegemony that it lets the seal go untended. While the shield's eyes are turned away, the gap in the gate widens, and the Kagura Domain pays too late for the seat it stepped away from.	It is folded in as a single sword beneath the revived divine authority. Granted the Buke Seat, it becomes the hand that grips the sword within the Three Houses (Sanke) condominium (new), but it can no longer claim the role of shield for itself.
The court and the imperial house	A symbol in name only. A figurehead standing behind the might of the three unifying heroes, it merely lends legitimacy and does not move of itself.	Beneath the warrior houses' realm it becomes the window that confers legitimacy. It endures as the party that lays its name upon the Kagura shogunate — still a symbol, but a symbol with a price attached.	Eroded from behind. The yoma's hand reaches near the throne, and no one notices that the court's word is becoming the yoma's word.	It takes up direct personal rule as a living god. Through the Return of the God (回神) — the event in which divine authority descends anew as politics — the arahitogami becomes the apex of a theocratic order (new) ruling directly from the throne.
The yoma faction	A threat to be sealed and annihilated. Those represented by Shuten-doji, Tamamo-no-Mae, and Konryu (混流) are pushed outside the human realm.	A managed threat. The Kagura shogunate does not eliminate the yoma entirely — since the very fact that it can open and close the seal is the lever, it leaves the threat in place and manages it.	The ruler behind the scenes. It holds the strings behind the puppet. A realm ruled in humanity's name is in fact moved by the yoma's will — a rule no one knows of.	Radically purified by the light of the divine authority — and that fire does not single out only the yoma. The heresy of humans who turn their backs on the god burns along with it.
Custody of the Three Sacred Treasures (三種神器)	They remain as the legacy of the seal. Sword, jewel, and mirror scatter or fall dormant, and their power sinks to the bedrock of the age, owned by no one.	The Kagura shogunate monopolizes them. As the emblem of sealing-power it gathers the three objects into one hand and holds them up as the grounds of legitimacy.	Confiscated by the yoma regime. Yet the three objects also remain humanity's last card — because they may be the only thing that can sever the strings behind the throne, even having been seized, the ones who seized them fear them.	Divided and enshrined among the three houses — imperial, warrior, and courtier. The mirror to the Imperial House (the controller), the sword to the Kagura Domain = the warrior houses (the pilot), the jewel to the courtier house (the heart-sync) — a division point where divine authority stands only when all three hands are of one mind.
The endpoint	The `ex3` shogunate. Tokugawa's unification and the great-yoma management system that follows it, leading into the Edo that pastes paper over the gate and stamps it with an official seal.	The Kagura shogunate. A realm opened by the warrior houses who grip the seal — a peace balanced on a sword's edge.	The yoma-behind-the-throne realm. Outwardly a nation of people, but in truth a nation dangling on strings — a silent endpoint where no one can ask who the master is.	Theocratic Edo. A realm beneath the revived god, but if one of the three hands is set down, the nation halts — and if it collapses, the divine authority withdraws and it is at last sutured into the `ex3` shogunate.

#Note — Common Handles and Stage

The four branches are different realms, but the point where they diverge and the stage they stand upon are one. Scale is gauged only by the words novice, seasoned, master, and campaign; there are no numbers.

#One Handle — Nobutsuna's Loyalty and Hegemony

The handle that parts the four world-lines gathers, in the end, into one person's single choice. It is whether Kagura Nobutsuna (神樂信綱) chooses loyalty or hegemony before the power of the seal. The canon Nobutsuna declared that "subjugating the yoma is the legitimacy of unifying the realm," yet did not grip the realm for himself (co-02-03). Hold that restraint and it is the true history; break it and it is IF-A.

Tilt toward loyalty — the seal remains a duty to be kept, and the shield withdraws. Should this restraint waver and the shield look elsewhere, it can also slip into IF-B (the neglected gate).
Tilt toward hegemony — the seal becomes a power to be gripped, and the shield becomes the ruler of the realm (IF-A).
When the handle leaves human hands — when neither Nobutsuna's loyalty nor his hegemony, but the event of divine authority standing anew directly from the throne (回神, new) grips the handle instead, it becomes IF-C.

#One Stage — The Giant and the Gate

The stages the four branches share number only two.

The Three Sacred Treasures' giant — a being that moves only when the three hands are of one mind. That Legendary Godframe's body lives in zn13-08 (with the intended asymmetric trinity intact: sword and jewel are Sacred Treasures, the mirror is masterwork-grade), and the only thing that varies by branch is who grips its legitimacy. Dormant as the legacy of the seal, it is the true history; monopolized by the warrior houses, IF-A; confiscated by the yoma yet remaining humanity's last card, IF-B; divided among the three houses, IF-C.
The Gate to the Spirit Realm — the canon gate has never once been closed. The ages merely handle it differently (co-02-03·ex3-03-01). The Warring States throws it wide open; Edo pastes paper into the gap and stamps it with an official seal. The four branches are four answers to how to close this gate.

#One Branch's "Blocking" Is Another Branch's "Leading"

And so the four world-lines interlock like inverted mirrors. Since only who grips legitimacy varies, what a PC desperately blocks in one branch becomes what someone leads the way in advancing in another. When IF-A's protagonist pushes the sword up toward the realm, the true-history PC seizes that very hand. When IF-C's celebrant sets the divine authority upon the throne, the PC of another branch stands to close that gate. No cell of the comparison table is a fixed good or evil — it is only the result of which way this handle has tilted.

#Note — Integrated Scenario Hooks

The three PC lenses (to lead / to block / after it is done) live in each branch's body. Here we hand only the method of letting a PC's choice decide which branch a single campaign tilts toward at the decisive juncture. Scale by the words novice, seasoned, master, and campaign.

#To Lead — The Juncture That Hands Over the Handle

Novice — In a single sealing mission, Nobutsuna (or a figure standing in for him) has the power of the seal before his eyes. Whether the PC eggs him on to "grip this power" or restrains him to "leave it in place" decides which branch's seed sprouts upon this table.
Seasoned — At the moment the Three Sacred Treasures' giant first wakes, the PC takes up one of the three hands. Choosing in whose name to move that body hardens one column of the comparison table into this session's legitimacy.
Campaign — When the factions divide over how to close the gate, which answer the PC's side drives through decides the endpoint itself (the shogunate·the Kagura shogunate·the yoma-behind-the-throne realm·theocratic Edo).

#To Block — The Juncture That Holds Against Slipping Into Another Branch

Novice — The PC fills a single gap in the gate (the seed of IF-B) that opened while the shield looked elsewhere. Blocking a small neglect is the first knot in blocking a great rule-from-behind.
Master — The PC turns back, at the final threshold, the hand that would convert the seal into power (IF-A) or the hand that would seat the divine authority upon the throne (IF-C). Here "blocking" is the very work of keeping the true history.
Campaign — Just before one of the three hands is set down and the nation halts, the PC rejoins that hand (suture) or makes the divine authority withdraw altogether (IF-C → suturing into the ex3 shogunate).

#After It Is Done — The Juncture of Living Within a Tilted Realm

Seasoned — In a realm already hardened into one branch, the PC lives the shadow of that endpoint. The seal-management of the Kagura shogunate, the silence of the yoma-behind-the-throne realm, the heretic-hunts beneath the light of theocratic Edo — whichever it is, the stage is set and the story opens within it.
Campaign — When a hardened realm shakes again. Suturing a collapsing theocracy into the ex3 shogunate, or a managed threat devouring its manager — the endpoint cell of the comparison table becomes the starting point of the next story.

#To the GM — What Is on the Table Is the True History

This comparison table does not take the choice away from the GM. Just as the principles of fc10 have it, the true history too is only one branch, and the IFs are separate world-lines that split off from it. Which branch to use, and when the handle tilts, is decided entirely upon your table — and what is decided upon your table is the true history of your campaign. The facts of canon co and ex3 always take precedence, but which realm to go to on top of that is yours. When you need detailed stats, go to co-02-03 (factions)·co-07-03 (Treasures)·zn13 (the giant)·ex3 (Edo factions). This document creates not a single new number.