Kodama No Kenshi
🗡️ Kodama no Kenshi
Filed under: Forest Spirits | Guardians | Wandering Legends
Recovered from: A brittle scroll beneath a moss-covered stone altar, deep within the Hollowgrove
The forest does not keep time as mortals do.
It measures the centuries in rings and rot, in shifting root paths and the slow return of stone to soil. The creatures that live within it are made of bark and bone, whisper and will. And among them, there walks a name spoken in hushed reverence: Kodama no Kenshi. The Blade of the Woods.
No one knows how old he is. Some say he was born when the first tree fell to axe. Others say he stepped out of a broken shrine, sword in hand, when the balance tipped too far toward greed.
He is no taller than a stump. His body is bark-wrapped, his eyes deep and silent. A cracked samurai helm rests on his mossy crown, and his blade—carved from ancient ironwood—never dulls. He does not speak, but his presence is enough. Wanderers claim they’ve seen him silently watching from the shadows, glowing faintly in the moonlight, hand resting on the hilt of his sword like a judge deciding fate.
When he appears, it is not without cause.
A logger who took more than his share. A hunter who killed without hunger. A lost child who needed guiding back to the edge. The Kodama no Kenshi does not seek revenge. He restores balance.
One story tells of a poacher who scoffed at the old tales and felled a tree marked with a ring of white mushrooms. They say the forest swallowed him—quietly. Another tells of a boy who left a rice cake and a thank-you note beneath a cedar. When he returned the next day, his sick sister was healed, and his axe was gone—replaced by a single acorn wrapped in ribbon.
Most who spot the Kodama think they’ve seen a trick of the light.
But the forest knows. And it remembers.
Threaded Note:
This design surfaced through the Threaded Archive’s Mythic Monday submission cycle, paired with an anonymous sketch and a packet of dried moss. We’ve included the symbol found etched beneath the bark of the scroll container—it matches one previously recovered from the Brambleroot Grove perimeter.
