Tengu Society

The Tengu Society was an absorbed faction of the Huntsman's Guild that operated in Japan; the Society was once a separate organisation of shinobi prior to the 1970's but was almost an extinct organisation until various American traders and private mercenaries introduced an early link to the larger old Guild before it's assets were later broken and divided by the bosses. It was the Aoi family that took the monopoly on combining their shinobi and assassin trade with the Guild and began breathing new life into the group, reemploying the Societies' older ways.

### Early History

The Tengu Society was thought to stretch as far back as the 4th century, where many progenitors to ruling family clans were in the business of creating assassins and subterfuge experts from lower-skilled castes as little more than pawns for each head, and the society existed in a very basic form for the soul purpose of forming allies with friendly clans to battle against bigger groups. However, in-fighting, betrayals and general bitter rivalry from within never saw the group forming long-lasting alliances between clans until the 10th century when the term "Society of the Tengu" or the "Tengu-kai" (天狗会), was first mentioned in various ledgers and diaries of the era.

When the Kamakura Shogunate was established by Minamoto no Yoritomo the Tengu Society saw a big improvement and dedication to stealth tactics to aid, and then subvert the later use of Samurai by other Shogun nobles. While members were still taken from low-class ninja-stock, became savvy fighters but were trained within clan-like units in total secrecy and many powerful ruling clans denied they even existed. Eventually this saw certain families, loyal to certain Shoguns train ninja and use the Society as a secret society-within-a-secret society, keeping rival clans in line out of ritual and respect rather than fighting. That, of course didn't mean that infighting never occurred, and in fact within the society itself and both "friendly" and "honourable" in-fighting was rather common to establish a ruling clan to the society; to die for this cause was a great and respected honour in the old Society

During the Genki Era, the Tengu Society later employed the use of both magic users or "Mahōtsukai" and neohumans, which the Japanese societies of the era referred to as "Akuma", though the latter were usually powerful enough to form groups of their own and try to establish their own territories using the Society's resources.

Eventually, with various revolutions the use of the Society became a powerful-enough separate entity to be used by anyone who could afford to pay them, though major contributors and users of the Society included the Iga and Kōga Clans. Though these two later began to employ shinobi directly as espionage experts and had very little sway over the Tengu Society's more complex honour-based systems. They also hated congregating with "poorer" clans who were also a part of the Society, it was the Aoi clan who later became were the primary mediators of the Society and only them who managed to keep the society afloat, even through the Second World Wars. Although during this era the Society was in every manner of speaking, non-existent, especially with the onset of the War and the recovery of Japan, the Aoi retained the assets and infrastructure relatively well.

### Modern Revival

Some time in the 1970's the Aoi Clan, got word of the Huntsman's Guild growing empire in the United States, and suggested the Society join with the Guild to essentially form Japan's faction, it would mean that the Society would be one of the few factions to act almost as it's own guild. However as the Guild in question was American, the Japanese government actively found the idea abhorrent and may have aided in the leaking of other countries involvement with the Guild later on. However when the Guild became compartmentalised in the 80's the Aoi kept links with the US strong by her connection with US Yakuza, however officially the Society as part of the greater Guild, dosn't actually exist.

Later in the late 2000's Riku Aoi would form the Nightstalkers as a separate entity to the guild that would see to tasks more suited to the Aoi family and the Tengu Society's interests in the US without the society leaving the Guild proper.