A long time ago, the martial artists of Jianghu used to learn martial arts for protection and safety against enemies that might appear.
As time passed martial arts evolved to something else, there was almost no martial arts used for protection or safety anymore.
Martial arts had become something used as a weapon, to kill more efficiently and with that it grew more advanced and much more complicated.
There was the Jianghu and the Murim, the Murim being only the people who practice martial arts some way or another. And the Jianghu was the society as a whole, even people who only slightly interact with the Murim is a part of the Jianghu.
The Jianghu split itself after hundreds of years of fighting within the Murim and four different factions appeared in the land.
One of the biggest factions being the emperors Palace. Owns the most land in all the Jianghu and is the rightfully crowned Emperor of the land. Though it is really a dynasty, it is mostly made up of normal people, and not martial artists.
The second biggest faction was the Orthodox faction, also called the Orthodox alliance. Made up of hundreds of sects, families or groups who all were part of the Murim and who stood for the good side of the scale and followed strict restrictions of what is allowed and what is not allowed.
Third biggest faction is the Unorthodox faction which is made up of thousands of different groups of pirates, thieves and loan sharks or anything that the Orthodox doesn’t allow. That made them band together in an unstable and shady alliance with each other.
The Fourth biggest faction is the Demonic Cult. The demonic cult is a faction where the entire cult is ruled by the heavenly demon and a court of his personally chosen sects or families. The Demonic cult is a bit different then the other faction as it isn’t seen that often outside of its territory.
There they value strength over everything else, whether someone is the heavenly demon’s child or a commoner. Is the commoner stronger he will be treated better. In the Demonic Cult you are always at the mercy of the people stronger than you, and it is okay to kill other people in duels or battles to prove yourself.
All the factions handled their territory differently, with the orthodox faction painting themselves as the good guys. Emperors’ palace getting people and peasants to join as it’s the rightful dynasty of the land. Unorthodox faction demanding payment for protection, or the demonic cult being looked up upon by the residents in it’s territory.
The residents take after their faction a huge deal. The people in the orthodox faction care a lot about what’s right and wrong. The people in the emperor’s palace follows him as they see it as their duty. The unorthodox residents becoming more unorthodox over time, so it’s easy to get robbed or threatened. Last the demonic cults residents see the demonic cult as somewhere people can gain power, and the Heavenly Demon who is looked up as a god helps them get stronger.
Weather you are in the Orthodox faction or the demonic cult, the Jianghu is a dangerous place especially for people who don’t know martial arts.
