Where the mountains meet the forest, where the boiling water of the Hebi-Gawa flows from beneath the ground, rises the Crane House, watching over the boundaries between three of the Five Rings. Inside, the monastic Order of Cranes go about their inscrutable business, all in service of the Jade Crane, whose visage adorns the top of the tower.
Tsurunoya predates the Third Age, and some say it even predates the Second Age, though were that the case, it evaded any sign of the violence that defined that age. Indeed, the majesty of the tower is unrivalled. More than ten storeys tall, the house can be entered through three entrances, each reached by long walkways of stone that serve as bridges traversing the sculpted Gardens of the Crane below.
There, sandbeds, tranquil ponds, manicured bonsai and other trees offer a serene escape for the fauna of Ikaiguchi. The gardens are home to a flock of cranes, whose wings are clipped so that they can never leave. It is said that when the last of the cranes leaves Tsurunoya, the world shall fall.
Deep within the house itself lies the Meisō-shitsu, the Crane’s mediation chamber, looked over by stone statues carved into the likenesses of the Shin’rei.