Shogun & Daimyo

The samurai ruled the Land of the Rising Sun from the end of the 12th century to the middle of the 19th century. At the top were the Shogun, the military dictators who dominated Japan as regents to the Emperors. Below the Shogun were the daimyo, provincial warlords who governed their individual fiefs with virtual sovereignty.

Shogun & Daimyo provides detailed information on the three dynasties of Shogun and one Shogunal Regency that dominated Japan during the feudal era, along with 171 daimyo clans that were defeated, dispossessed, or otherwise dissolved before the end of the samurai era.

The information is organized as an handbook for creating more realistic backgrounds for role-playing games, boardgames, miniatures games, and computer games. It is also useful for those writing historical novels, screenplays, graphic novels, comic books, animé, and other creative works.
Background material includes history, government structure, and a kanji primer. For gamers, a campaign setting is provided, along with notes on road travel, gazetteers of the major routes, and the use of mon "family crests." There is also a special section on samurai cinema with plot synopsis and recommendations for 103 chanbara movies and TV shows.

Shogun & Daimyo is a companion to Daimyo of 1876 (Different Worlds Publications 2010). The two books together cover all the major clans and prominent families of feudal Japan.

Among the shogun and daimyo in this book you will find:

- Taira Kiyomori, the warrior-general who established the first samurai-dominated government in the history of Japan

- Minamoto Yoritomo, Japan's 1st Shogun and eminent administrator, who moved his military government to Kamakura, far from the meddling influences of the Imperial Court in Kyoto

- Ashikaga Takauji, the controversial samurai general who fought for the restoration of Imperial rule, but left the Court divided, and took control with a new warrior government as the 1st Shogun of the 2nd Shogunal dynasty of Japan

- Takeda Shingen, a military genius and innovator who fought, Uesugi Kenshin in a series of legendary battles at Kawanaka-jima, and whose secret death drove the plot of Akira Kurosawa's film Kagemusha

- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a son of a peasant-warrior, who rose in power to complete the unification of Japan that was started by Oda Nobunaga, but whose ambitions led to the destruction of his clan

- Tokugawa Ieyasu, a minor daimyo who became Shogun, and established the 3rd and last Shogunal dynasty that would rule the Land
of the Rising Sun for two-and-a-half centuries, until the end of the samurai era.

Profusely illuminated with hundreds of woodcut prints, paintings, photos, family trees, and crests.

Suggested for mature readers.