Gaki-dō

Gaki-dō was the Rokugani Realm of the Hungry Dead. Emerald Empire: The Essential Guide to Rokugan, p. 88 In Dragon lands, the Agasha tended shrines to Tōshigoku and Gaki-dō in order to balance the benevolent shrines honoring Meido and Tengoku. Emerald Empire: The Essential Guide to Rokugan, p. 162 It was a realm of punishment for souls who could not be satisfied in life: the greedy, the lustful, the gluttonous, and the power hungry. Their fixation on physical pleasures caused them to neglect their dharma, their desires growing until they could not be sated, and so they had been relegated to this realm where nothing satisfied. Celestial Realms, p. 9
== Inhabitants ==
=== Gaki ===
A soul corrupted thoroughly by desire was called a gaki, and was reborn into Gaki-dō. Although its name was sometimes translated as "hungry ghost," a gaki was not a shade that failed to pass on; all gaki had been through Meido and been found disappointing, mediocre, or below average. Each gaki's previous misdeeds were neither so violent as to consign them to Tōshigoku, the Realm of Slaughter, nor so base and evil as to banish them to Jigoku proper, but they had not done nearly well enough to warrant an animal rebirth, either. Emerald Empire: The Essential Guide to Rokugan, p. 138
=== Mazoku ===
Mazoku were magistrates and guards within Gaki-dō, who oversaw the realm on the behalf of Emma-Ō, the Fortune of Death. But the sheer number of spirits there utterly overwhelmed any attempt to properly keep them contained. Many gaki escaped Gakidō to haunt Rokugan, especially in areas where the two realms drew near, such as where violent battles, terrible murders, and other blood-soaked horrors occurred. The mazoku sometimes worked with Phantom Hunters to jointly accomplish their common mission. Shadowlands: The Essential Guide to the Dominion of Fu Leng, pp. 83-85 Recovering escaped gaki was the sole duty of Gaki-dō's primary administrator, a woman known as the Hungry Governor. 
== Appearance ==
Emma-Ō's priests described Gaki-dō as a massive, sprawling city beneath Meido, an enormous ruined slum where buildings were dilapidated and crumbling. The air was foul with the stink of the dead. Gaki-dō could seem like a phantom shade of Ningen-dō. Celestial Realms, p. 28 Gaki passed into the vast subterranean slum surrounding Meido. Each of Gaki-dō's precincts and parishes was the size of one of Rokugan's provinces, administered by mazoku magistrates and guards. The weather was always bad, and the air smelled stale and foul. The gaki lived, worked, ate, struggled with one anot her, and expired in this miserable sprawl. 
=== Portals ===
Gaki could appear in Ningen-dō at the borders of certain city blocks, the realm faded into graveyards, ruined shrines, and other such places. Celestial Realms, p. 28 In Ryokō Owari Toshi, the City of Lies, some residents claimed that a parade of hungry ghosts appeared every summer during the twilight Hour of the Rooster—and that a person in the street during this time might accidentally become caught in Gaki-dō. Celestial Realms, p. 10
== Fu Leng and Day of Thunder ==
Yomi's impregnable borders had kept Jigoku's evils in check, but Fu Leng's fall into the underworld ruptured those borders. As Fu Leng, saturated in Jigoku's evil, increased his power and influence, Jigoku encroached further on Yomi, even capturing several unlucky sorei, who suffered there to this day. Then came the Day of Thunder. Because the Kami so loved the Thunders, they petitioned Heaven that the fallen Thunders might ultimately live alongside them in Heaven instead of risking corruption in Yomi. The stewards of the Heavens went further, transporting the entirety of Yomi and all its sorei into the sky, where Jigoku's defilements could not reach them. Yomi was safe, but the underworld was lost to Jigoku, save for Meido. Emma-Ō, his Kings of Hell, and their loyal mazoku descended from on high to reconquer the world below. They seized the levels now known as Meido, Gaki-dō, and Tōshigoku from the forces of Jigoku, but keeping control of Gaki-dō and Tōshigoku proved vexing even for one of the greatest gods. Emerald Empire: The Essential Guide to Rokugan, p. 134
Category:Rokugani Language (TCG)
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