[quote=@Vahir]
[@The Grey Dust]

Woah, that's some interesting fluff you've got there! 

Well, I didn't envisage the Qayu as a warrior culture necessarily, but then again I'm not closed to it. And they've got the secluded mountain people thing down. 

I've got an idea: your culture could be the northern, "hardcore" Qayu, the original tribe. As time went on, the Qayu settled into southern, more fertile valleys, abandoning some of the harsher parts of their culture as they became no longer necessary. The Shangrila/Valhalla mountain would exist in the northern reaches of the world. After a thousand years without their demigod, some of the temples may have abandoned, or razed by warring clans. Or, if we want to be even more poignant, a climate shift saw the region become flat-out uninhabitable for large scale societies, so they were forced to abandon the entire mountain to ruin. Lots of possibilities to integrate that idea.

Also, a call to arms:

[@The Narrator][@Nevis][@banjoanjo][@sakurasan][@R0bE0][@abloomingflower][@Crimson Raven][@FernStone][@Zendrelax][@Flagg][@Polybius]


[/quote]

Yes this could work. Perhaps these are the oldest of Qayu who have remained dedicated to their sacred mountain. As the generations go, tradition was forsaken in fear of death. Thus in lieu of dying with the monks, the younger generations fled south, to where the mountains were not as harsh and gave way to greener valleys. Those who remain in the mountain are doomed, clinging on to their old "barbaric" ways.

I'd imagine something of that nature. Like with the Grandmaster gone, the mountain is in a state of political turmoil. 4 factions vying for power over the mountain, and the rest of Qayu. There is the Khan and his court who is in charge of the militant branch, the 4 Noble Families who are exerting socioeconomic pressure, and finally the Eight Masters who have lost their mythical leader and are now barely able to control their own schools let alone their spirituality. And of course there is the Etruscian Republic which wants to keep the entire region under control as they puppet the 3 factions into destroying themselves. 

As such landscape is essentially changed into one of a cold war between all three. The Nobles having enlisted the Etruscian forces to back them against the Khan in a political measure. The Khan in turn seeking authoritative mandate against the Nobles from the Monks who have none because their Grandmaster is gone. And the Monks crumbling internally as the 8 schools are dying off with their internal affairs in attempting to produce a substitute for the grandmaster. It is at this time, where the Grandmaster needs to make a return and justify everything before the entire mountain erupts and destroys the world (or so the legend goes that the Mountain erupts only at cataclysm, and will herald the destruction of everything, Angels, Demons, and Mortals.