How the Fateweaver Shrine Fates work in Guardians of Azuma

Last updated on 20 January 2026 with results of splitting my life after I used the Orb to move forward to Fate 2.


I read descriptions about the Orb.  I read opinions of players who had different reasons for wanting or not wanting to do it.

I am the sort of player who has back up files.  I saved a file at the point of planting the Plum Sapling where every eligible candidate was at Level 10, had gone through all Bonding Events and would accept my proposal if I made one.

I went forward from there and married Kai, and had two children with him.  At this point, the game was given an update with new rewards and ability to increase Bond Levels.  In the file where I was married to Kai, I raised every character with a Profile to Level 12 to obtain a Life-sized Cut Out Recipe.

All Villages were at Level 10 and I completed all the Pure Azuma Quests.

I was promoted to god after returning the Heart Shards to Mihoshi Habaki.

What I had not done was go through the Trials.

I decided to try the Orb at the Fateweaver Shrine.  I knew where it was as I had walked into it by accident and backed off instantly.

I initiated Fate 2.

This places every one again at the point where you must begin a courtship and experience their romantic events anew if you never did that.  I had gone through all of them before I married Kai.

When I entered my new life, I was unmarried but Friendship with every one remained the same.  The lowest was Level 12.  One loses all intimacy with other characters when one marries so nothing changed there.

I always felt one was supposed to marry Subaru so I decided to do that.  I began to court him which meant telling him 'I love you' and then experiencing all the romantic Bonding Events again as I had done all of them with every one before I ever proposed to Kai..  

I married Subaru and began to compare him with Kai.  This detracted from my enjoyment of my new life!

My actual life was the same.  All the landscapes I created were in place.  All the gear I had made and everything in inventory remained intact.

I used the time between wedding and the decision to have a child to find chests I had missed and try to raise my level in preparation for the final trials.

Subaru, unlike Kai was not at the Shrine every morning to give me my lunch and again at night to serve me dinner.  Is this a glitch or who he is?  Even when we had our first child, he was erratic.

This brings me to something I did not expect!  Before I changed my fate, I had been promoted to godhood.  The main quests were done.

When I had my first son with Subaru, however, my new son  brought a heart shard to me two days after his birth!  I had to go throufh the entire sequence of Quests again!  And finally tell Mihoshi Habaki if I accepted godhood or not yet again.

I only had one child with Subaru so far.  I began to wonder if time passed in both fates or if it stood still in my fate with Kai.  I decided to find out.  I missed my life with him.

So the answer is that time continued to pass.  Any experience earned with Subaru now is there in my life with Kai.  I am assuming I can return to Subaru at any time and have a second child.  (Later:  This is in fact the case.  You can return to your Fate where you had only one child and provided you never told your spouse you did not want a second child, the timeline for the second child will be initiated upon your return.  Look at the birthday of your first child and count the days from there.)

What was interesting is that my first child with Subaru was born at Level 22.  My friendship with my first child with Kai was transferred to the son of Subaru.

This is the bizarre aspect of the new Fates:

While never losing access to the various levels of the Forest of Endings, after your new first child is born, the heart shards quest will activate.  The gods will meet and tell you that the shards must be collected and given back to Mihoshi Habaki again.

First you need to collect the other four from the Level 110 Bosses, and then go to the Entrance to the Forest of Endings in the Heavenly Realm.  You then must go through each level of the Forest of Endings in order.  There will be no bosses, and indeed when you reach the endpoint of Level 9, you can go directly up to Mihoshi Habaki.  Incidentally, you will  have lost your status so if you wish to be named guardian and god, you must agree to the promotion again.

One more aspect of this I have not tested but it states this clearly:  to save a new Fate, you must marry again.  You cannot start a path and then save it without completing the new life with a marriage!

In conclusion, perhaps the best strategy would be to refrain from all the courtships and do them one by one using the Orb.  Perhaps do not have a child either until you have created every fate.  Mind you, I go back to the Firest of Endings almost daily anyway.

Update on 20 January 2026:

This describes a completing different game where I married Ikaruga initially.

I became bored with him after having only one child, went to the Orb and began Fate 2.

I dislike unfinished business.  When I split my game by choosing to begin a Fate 2 but then saving in two separate files from that point, I went forward in each to court a different character.  I will assess this strategy at the end of this book update with the pros and cons of it.

In one of those files, I went forward to marry Kai.

In the other, I went forward to marry Mauro.

So bear with me here.

Fate 1 was the same in both files, but after marriage in each, Fate 2 was different.

So, it is interesting but confusing to have different branches on the same tree.  One can do more… returning to Fate 1, I could have a second child with Ikaruga (my unfinished business) in each of those files, meaning I could have a different child in those different files I had created.  

Guardians of Azuma wants you to live your life fully.  In the old games, we could sleep through the waiting periods required to have children and so on.  You actually can do it here but the game will criticise and punish you each day you leap back into bed immediately after rising.  All you need to do to prevent that is talk to your spouse and accept your packed lunch before you return to your bed, but I always feel too guilty to let any of that be saved.  I will do it on a temporary basis to see what my child will look like for example but then I reload without saving to go through the entire season required to get your partner to suggest having a second child.

What made my life a little difficult in having these two separate Fate 2 files stemming from the same Fate 1 was the new Story of Seasons update.  I had to perform the Quests twice.  The Orb is a sophisticated device.  If I had gone forward to Fate 2 in only one file and continued there to marry either Mauro or Kai in Fate 2, I could have gone back to the Orb afterwards to create a new fate named Fate 3 and then married the other character in that.  Sometimes I over complicate my life.

You may wonder why I married Kai in Tate 2 when he had been my first spouse in another game.  Well, I have to confess I am wild about Kai.  It became very difficult to interact with him daily and know that he would not be waiting back at the Shrine for dinner telling me: ‘Time to chow down!’

Also I then had different children with him which was interesting.

I might as well discuss this here although it is discussed in another post as well.

There are six possible children in any marriage.  Three boys and three girls.  Their personalities and physical appearance are linked and indeed, you only can choose the gender and personality of each.  Physical appearance then is set by the game.

You need not have one of each gender.  You can have two boys or two girls if you prefer that.

What  I realised very quickly is that it is the second child that is the ultimate ‘prize’ for having chosen your spouse as it is the second child who most resembles your spouse physically.  Not only does hair colour mirror the hair colour of your spouse but any unique characteristics such as animal ears or Oni horns are given only to the second child.

As you will discover, your first child comes rather quickly after marriage.  You need wait only five days (unless a Festival intervenes) before your spouse asks if you would like to expand your family by having a child.  Five more days for you to suggest another visit to the Fateweaver Shrine to beg the gods to hurry things along and while there, Woolby will perform a gynecological examination and declare you are expecting.  Five days after that, your child will be born.

The same process and timing occurs where the second child is concerned but you must wait a month after the birth of your first child before your spouse will suggest having another.

The only restriction really is that you cannot choose the same child twice even though the second child would look very different from the first.