Year One of the Great Famine begins… 

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During the first spring of the Great Famine, the prosperous kingdom of Jinri began to unravel. Emperor Liang Zhao, only four years into his reign, struggles to hold together a court steeped in tradition, riddled with ambition, now cracking beneath the weight of growing hunger and dissent. Criticized for inaction and suffocated by palace ritual, Zhao issues a desperate royal edict:

Any soul who can restore the land shall be rewarded with wealth, honor, and undying glory.

Still, even within the gilded walls of the capital, where vermilion gates conceal the cries of the starving, unrest brews in quieter forms. Tensions simmer between the emperor and his formidable prime minister and father-in-law, Wēn Zhiming, who demands the continuation of the royal bloodline even as the empire starves. Shadows stir in the court in the form of cunning ministers, whose motives remain cloaked behind practiced smiles.

Meanwhile, Empress Lian Mei—dutiful, clever, and quietly disillusioned—grapples with her own loneliness. Bound to Zhao by politics rather than love, she walks the fine line between imperial elegance and autonomy. As rival consorts whisper and the court tightens its grip, she makes a bold, impulsive decision to address the growing distance between herself and the man she once knew as a boy.

But beyond the reach of memorials and intrigue, the famine is writing a different story. In the wild Northern Hills, survival belongs to the ruthless. The Xuè Rèn, the Beasts of the Blood Blade—are the most feared of all raider clans. Villages raise towering walls to shield themselves from their raids, while lesser clans retreat further into the hills to avoid trespassing on their territory. Their leader, Shan Hu, called The Great Mountain, rules with strength and certainty, his word as sharp as the blades his men carry.

But the famine forced even him to soften, to feel the weight of true suffering. For the first time, Shan Hu forbade his men from pillaging the small homes and humble farms that once fed their fires.

Among them lives Jianyu, a young raider found as an infant and raised by Shan Hu himself. Beloved by his mother and siblings, he was carefree and untamed; knowing no life beyond the forest and his clan. Yet years before the famine tightened its grip on Jinri, Jianyu sensed the change: rivers thinning, the forest growing silent, futile hunts. Quietly, he began to build systems within the camp to protect his family and clansmen from impending hardships.

But envy and scorn have a way of creeping into even the deepest forests, and not every man welcomed his vision.

As the throne wavers and old alliances fray, Sons of Jade & Steel explores the tenuousness of power, the cost of pride, and the quiet rebellions of men who venture to reach beyond duty.

Within the palace, behind every silken curtain, loyalty is tried; ambition smolders—and hope, however fragile, begins to stir.

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Edited: 10/30/25