This coal-mining town is originally named Hayaku Mura after the founder of the Daidoji. It is a place of obscurity, connected to the inland Crane territories by a single narrow pass through the hills known as the Silk Pass (sometimes jokingly referred to as the “son of Beiden”).
Aside from mining coal, the town also sometimes traded with unsavory Mantis merchants, those too poor or too sinister to go to better ports. The place has been a frequent victim of ronin bandits and natural disasters. Earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes, and thunderstorms plague the region as if its very existence offends the very fortunes. The town’s eta and heimin survive by burrowing their way into the piles of mine-rubble around the village, creating little “rabbit holes” which are very dangerous to live in – especially given the random earthquakes.
The Crane renamed it Umoeru Mura, “Rubble Village.” Umoeru Mura’s main purpose is punishment. The Doji send their failures here – those who fail miserably but who warrant neither the harshness of exile nor the privilege of seppuku. Those who are sent to live in Rubble Village can never hope to leave, and the samurai of this place are known as some of the most miserable and contemptible people in Rokugan – creatures of petty sins and futile hopes. Indeed, the mere threat of being assigned to Umoeru Mura has sometimes motivated Crane samurai to rise up to true heights of glory.