A Handful of Yokai- Abura Akago

As stated earlier, the term Yokai encompasses any strange phenomenon. Their legends comingle the seemingly disparate lore of ghosts, trickster spirits, creepy children, and even unexplained lights in the heavens. In one tale, strange fireballs drift through the night sky over Japanese towns. One descends, hovering over houses like a bird scanning a field for tasty worms.  The burning light picks a home and floats inside. Instead of igniting the flammable wooden wall, the light extinguishes. In its place, an adorable human infant scurries across the floor in search of oil lamps. It finds its prey in the bedroom, and while the residents soundly sleep, the infant eagerly opens the lamp and laps up all the oil.  Once sated, it leaves the home a floating fireball once more. In the morning, the residents discover the empty lamps and know an Abura Akago visited their home.

All Abura Akago were once humans. In life, they stole lamp oil from their neighbors and friends to make a profit from selling the ill-gotten oil. Their thefts doomed them to commit this same crime for eternity as Abura Akago.

Abura Akago (Oil lapping infant)

Initiative: 6

Physical: 3

Mental: 8

Social: 6

Health Pips: 6

Special Traits:

Shapeshifter - Floating Fireball (see page 294 of the Victoriana 3^rd edition Rulebook)

Infuriating innocence- Only the most desperate or heartless would try to hurt a defenseless child. Before attacking an Abura Akago for the first time, the attack must pass a Resolve test with 3 black dice. If passed they may attack, if failed they flinch and may not attack that round.

Damage:  Bite and struggle (1)

Abura Akago (Floating Fireball)

Initiative: 10

Physical: 9

Mental: 6

Social: 2

Health Pips: 14 AV: 3

Special Traits:

Shapeshifter- Oil Lapping Infant (see page 294 of the Victoriana 3^rd edition Rulebook)

Damaging Body- 7 damage dice, physical contact only (see page 293 of the Victoriana 3^rd edition Rulebook)

Float- While a fireball, the Abura Akago flies through the air. Movement: 10

Damage:
Recklessly plow into its attackers (8)

Adventure Ideas

Depending on the nature of the Abura Akago’s diet, the proliferation of gaslight through London in the latter half of the 1800s is either a boon or a bane. If it just needs fuel, the presence of endless combustible gas piped all through a house could grow an Abura Akago into a massive floating inferno. If it can only lap up oil, the Abura Akago would be forced to search for food among neighborhoods of London too poor for gaslight.

A slew of robberies match the methods and targets of a recently executed thief. Is it the thief’s apprentice, the thief’s ghost, or someone using the dead thief’s reputations to hide the true motives for their crime?

Both the English and the Japanese used oil harvested from the blubber of whales to light lamps. A clever Abura Akago forgoes sneaking into houses to lap up lampfulls of oil in favor of feasting on an unending source of sustenance in the warehouse belonging to a whale oil seller. If it’s binging continues, the oil-seller is ruined. Alternatively, some whaling ships, processed the blubber into oil while at sea to maximize their efficiency. Perhaps an Abura Akago haunts the casks stored in the ships hold.