The monastery of Circle's End is old. Very old. From a time before the distinction between natural sacred site, shrine, temple, monastery, all places of worship and contemplation blended together as one.
As such, Circle's End is fundamentally a cavern. A big one, more of a series of interconnected caves really, caves that have been carved, arranged, furnished, even expanded with the addition of a few wooden outbuildings. But a cave nonetheless, a fragment of the mountain itself well before something build by human hands.
This does not show so much near the entrance. The main hall, in which one stumbles as soon as they pass the gate, has been accommodated to reassure the newcomer, mimicking more usual Rokugani architecture, folding screens, parquet, paper and wood panels breaking down the stony roughness of this first cavern.
This is the place where most activities of the monastery happen, where meals are taken together by monks and visitors alike, where the religious people flock in to pray as one, where announcements are made, where the current inhabitants gather when they need to.
Next to it is a small and cozy room, adorned with carpets, curtains and cushions. The location's comfortable atmosphere is even reinforced by the gentle light descending from an upward window, an agreeable change in a place otherwise mostly lighted with lanterns. This is the reception room where the abbess can receive important guests around a cup of tea, offering them the biggest luxury of all: Privacy.
As indeed privacy otherwise doesn't really exist here. There isn't much in the way of inside doors, no individual cells or commodities. Guests can create an illusion of privacy by setting up a folding screen next to their resting place but not much more. Though in general, they're often too surprised by where they get to sleep to think of it.
Because after that familiar entrance, the true nature of the cavern swiftly returns, the next rooms not ashamed anymore of letting the rock shows up in its full naked glory. And the lodgings to be nothing more than raw underground chambers in the deep of the monastery where standard mattresses and blankets are set up. The only luxury is provided by the mountain itself, in the form of the year-long pleasant coolness of the cave, even when the snowstorm rages outside.
Clean water can be fetched directly without leaving the monastery thanks to some of the caves leading to an underground river. A small bathing facility has been built next to it, as in basins carved directly from the stone where one can enjoy a cold bath.
It's there, at the deep of the deep, that the shrine to the mountain kami can be found.
Older than anything around it save for the mountain itself, it is still tended with the same devotion by the monks of today than it was by the first person to lit a lantern here eons ago.
The circumstances in which the monastery around it came to be are lost to time. The library holds some pretty old records, but none nearly ancient enough. It does have a pretty impressive and eclectic selection for a place this size though, thanks to having accumulated various texts gifted by travelers through the centuries and almost ideal preservation conditions. The library includes another of the rooms that get to enjoy sunlight thanks to a natural window, making it the perfect spot to read on a sunny day.
As for relaxing locations, a tableland a stone's throw away from the main edifice is used as an ephemeral rock garden, always reset by the snow and the thaw.
Finally, the latest addition to the monastery are the brand new training grounds. And by that, it is to be understood Sensei Wu hammered a few stakes and stretched out a few ropes in a wild spot next to the monastery, and declared this was there training would be conducted.
Rocky, icy, uneven and slippery, Wu's grounds are certainly not a dojo with spotless tatami. Guests are discretly advised to not actually train there unless they're confident in their balance.
As expected, the monastery of course also has many other utility rooms: the kitchen, a simple stable on the outside, a spot used as an atelier, another for storage, and basically any additional reasonable location.
Art:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ybkLe3
https://www.deviantart.com/shockbolt/ar ... -109274050
