Category:Bureau of Seasons

The Celestial Monitors of the Seasons and Weather, known more commonly as the Bureau of Seasons, is the bureaucracy of weather administration within the Celestial Bureaucracy.

The Bureau of Seasons is a complex entity in Yu Shan… despite the fact that its officials have a far more direct hand in their purviews than other gods, few of Heaven’s spirits (including those actually employed within it) have much respect for its work administering Creation’s weather patterns, many gods of the Bureau seeking transfer to more respected Bureaus, a reality which partly explains the fact the Bureau of Seasons has by far the highest proportion of elementals to gods amongst Heaven’s offices.

Equally difficult is the reputation of the Bureau amongst the gods. While the Bureau has long managed Creation’s weather and climate, its nature was changed following the purges which came out of the Primordial War, that saw huge swathes of its membership and almost the entirety of its leadership smelted to Starmetal for supporting the Primordials over the Exalted. Their replacements were selected both for their loyalty and their military prowess, so that Heaven might have an army to join the Unconquered Sun in doing battle with the forces seeking to destroy Creation, and the institution that emerged had lost much of its knowledge and experience with weather planning, its militarized hierarchy now structured to await commands rather than operate under their own direction. These came first from the Unconquered Sun and the Incarnae, but as the First Age wore on the Most High transferred responsibility to the Solar Deliberative, deeming the direction of weather in Creation to belong with the Exalted as part of the Mandate of Heaven.

With the Usurpation having suddenly stripped them of that direction, the Bureau has struggled to develop its own systems for analysis and long-term planning, while rejecting the attempts of various Shogunate and Dragonblooded entities to replace the Solars as a source of guidance… though the refusal has certainly not been total. Today, while the Realm’s Bureau of Climatic Deliberations still submits directives and the Bureau of Seasons officially rejects them, many of the instructions therein nonetheless make their way into annual weather patterns, if only because it makes the jobs of the Bureau’s officials far easier to simply implement a plan already studied and reviewed by Creation’s authorities (for its part, the Perfected Hierarchy of the Immaculate Faith is clear that weather must occur for the benefit of Creation, but that it is the responsibility of the Bureau of Seasons to do both labour and planning required, at direction of the relevant departments in the Celestial Bureaucracy, not await improper direction from Creation-bound sources).

And yet, for its struggles, the Bureau of Seasons has fared far better than those of Humanity or Nature, keeping firm hold on its offices and officials, due to the raw power at its disposal. While the Bureau of Heaven could bring to bear the Celestial Lions and gods of war, and the Bureau of Destiny’s Crimson Panoply of Victory is home to Heaven’s most potent martial champions, the Bureau of Season’s Aerial Legion is known to be the most potent force amongst the armies of Yu Shan.

The Bureau is divided into several large departments, the Seasonal Courts, each led by a Shogun. These Shoguns, and most of the other major spirits within the Bureau, are assigned responsibility for both a span of time and a weather phenomenon (almost always the one most commonly associated with that span). It works closely with its counterparts in the Terrestrial Bureaucracy’s Court of Seasons and the various Terrestrial Courts containing spirits of individual weather phenomena and interactions, getting on particularly well with the Council of Winds as the leaders of that Court also serve the Aerial Legion (a reason, some whisper, why that Court’s campaign against elementals of Water has not drawn much ire from the Celestial Censors).

The current Shogun of the Seasons and the Weather is the Lesser Elemental Dragon of Air Ghataru. Ghataru considers himself Shogun-Regent of the Bureau, tasked with maintaining it until the return of the Most High to direct involvement or the restoration of a Solar Deliberative capable of taking command rather than directing policy… his favoured adjutant Nasri, god of rainstorms and commander of the Aerial Legion, pushes for a far more active line.