Their Finest Hour- Dogfights

Two years ago, I wrote a series speculating on an alternate setting for Victoriana moving the timeline ahead 90 years into World War II. I’ve always wanted to return to it, and since those posts consistently generate the most views out of anything in Skullduggery in the Smoke’s history I assume some of you might also like some more.

The Battle of Britain’s front lines were the English skies. After overrunning Western Europe, the German military sat on the continent across the English’s channel and sent wave after wave of fighters and bombers to force Great Britain into signing a peace agreement and accepting the Nazi domination of Europe. The pilots of the Royal Air Force armed with Hurricanes and Spitfires flew to protect their homes from or to avenge their homes on the aerial invaders.

For any game set during the Battle of Britain, these dogfights are a crucial part of that setting. As suggested by its name, the scale of World War II is massive, much larger than a standard combat in Victoriana could satisfyingly replicate. I’ve written Dogfighting rules to enable larger battles and to emulate the incredibly fast incredibly deadly atmosphere of a sortie between entire squadrons of combatants. Optional rules further expand the possibilities and dangers, and I’ve worked out stats for aircraft belonging to both sides. For the next few weeks, I’ll present my Dogfighting rules. At the end, I’ll compile them all (and a few extras) in a pdf for the Blog’s Resources page. This is by far the most mechanically complex project I’ve ever written and feedback is certainly welcome.

Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

A Handful of Yokai- East and West

While this blog’s monster hunting in Japan caught bucket-loads of adventures and encounters, London remains the undisputed champion setting of Victoriana. It’s time to bring our fire babies, snail ladies, and visually acute privates back home to the streets of 1850s London through the examination of Japanese-English relations.

At first glance, there is very little historic room for Japanese/English cultural exchange before the 1860s, let alone a bunch of crazy Japanese monsters. Fearful of western imperialism and the growing wealth of Japanese merchants, the Tokugawa shogunate restricted all international trade in Japan and banned its population from traveling abroad in the early 1600s.  The Japanese government exclusively traded with Dutch and Chinese ships and restricted these ships to dock only at the port of Nagasaki. Japan’s isolation lasted until July 8, 1853, when a fleet of modern American warships sent by President Millard Fillmore arrived at Edo bay threatening to either open trade relations with Japan or burn their capital city of Edo to the ground. Japan and America signed “the Treaty of Peace and Amity” in 1854 forcibly opening the island nation to American diplomacy and trade.

A mere month, after the American fleet arrived, a Russian fleet arrived in Nagasaki with a similar plan. Alarmed that their foe in the Crimean War could gain a peaceful toehold in Japan, the British government sent its own fleet led by Vice Admiral James Stirling to attack the Russian Fleet and to prevent the Japanese from aiding the Russians in the war. Stirling’s negotiations with the Shogunate bore unexpected fruit: not only did Japan remain neutral, but Stirling also opened up the country for British trade. The combination of the threatening sight of Stirling’s fleet, the hope of British forces deterring Russian advances into Japanese territory, memories of the American fleet’s recent demands, and near-constant miscommunication between translators led to the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty of 1854. The treaty opened Nagasaki and Hakodate to British ships and gave citizens of the British Empire the same rights as the Chinese or Dutch in Japan. The first British consulate to Japan opened in 1858. However, Stirling never got around to seeking and destroying the Russian fleet.

Japan took its biggest step in European relations in 1862 when the shogunate sent the First Japanese Embassy to Europe. This diplomatic mission consisted of forty bureaucrats, negotiators, and young samurai traveling through Europe on a mission to learn about the western world and delay unwanted clauses in certain treaties. These men explored all the major cities of Europe, watching Europeans in all strata of society with unquenchable curiosity. In London, the mission visited an opium den, noticing with pride it was full of English and Chinese addicts.

Now exposed to Japanese culture, Europe hungered for Japanese craftsmanship, and style. Creators of fashion, furniture, and art mingled their designs with Japanese simplicity and strength. The craze in England culminated in the Japanese Village Exhibition of 1885, wherein an entire Japanese village, complete with 100 Japanese men and women employed to populate the village, was replicated and displayed in London. In return, European technology and scientific advancements trickled into Japan through the late 1800s.

Adventure Ideas:

Japan and Russia have a mutual tradition tension over their respective nation's territories. Perhaps a secret diplomatic mission visited London to discuss the possibility of opening a new front against Russia in the East. A faction in the Japanese government sends Yokai to sabotage the proposed alliance.

Legends fill the waters surrounding Japan with numerous insidious Yokai. Whether they defend their nation or rampage through the waves, the foreign fleets seeking parley in the shogunate’s harbors brave these terrors or perhaps risk bringing something back to their home waters.

For 200 years, the Dutch formed the bottleneck between Japan and Europe. Once accidental English diplomacy opens up trade, greedy Dutch merchants seek the help of dangerous Yokai to make London shipping magnates think twice about intruding on their business. 

A Handful of Yokai- The Shirime

 

While all Yokai follow the strange rules and rituals of Japanese folktales, none surpass the Shirime in bizarre yet pointless behavior or in absurd bodily features. During dark nights in Japan, a lone figure dressed in a kimono approaches fellow travelers in the street. It asks for a moment of their time. Before the accosted travelers can answer yes or no, the stranger steps out of its kimono, turns around, and drops to its hands and feet. The horrified travelers recoil in fear and revulsion, not at exposed privates, but from a large glowing eye staring back at them from between the stranger’s buttocks.

 

The Shirime (literally meaning “butt eye”) simply wants to scare unsuspecting travelers. This simple mischievous desire makes them less dangerous than some other yokai, but that bizarre and unsettling prank more than makes up for it. While all Shirime posses the hidden eye and a humanoid form, how effectively they pass for a human varies in the telling. Some say the Shirime looks like a normal person. In other tales, it has a head but no face. In either case, the Shirime blends in well enough to stalk city streets at night searching for unwary pedestrians to shock.

 

For all its shocking bodily horrors, no story records the Shirime’s origins. In the earliest recorded story from the Edo period, before even the Shirime received its own name, the Yokai was compared to a Noppera-bo, a creepy faceless shapeshifter. Without more details, the Shirime could be anything from a ghost damned by a misdeed, a human cursed to an exhibitionist existence, purely a monster, or a trouble-making badger spirit.

 

Shirime (Mischevious humanoid with a rectal eye)

Initiative: 8

Physical: 6

Mental: 6

Social: 7

Health Pips: 10

Special Traits:

Startling Exposure- The sight of a Shirime’s rectal eye is so horrifying anyone viewing it must pass a Resolve test with 6 black dice. If passed, they suffer no further penalty. If failed, they suffer 3 black dice to any actions performed while the eye is in sight and 6 black dice to attacks against the Shirime.

Damage: Well aimed kicks (7)

Adventure Ideas

To make the Shirime even weirder, what if when it stands up like a human it’s actually upside down? So it’s “legs” are really its forepaws, and it’s “arms” are hind legs. It normally moves forward in a disturbingly fast “backwards” crawl with its eye open to avoid tripping or bumping into walls. Try fighting that.

The social season lies in ruin thanks to a Shirime’s rampage in London. It infiltrates the best parties, grabs everyone’s attention, and then exposes its eye. No young lady of breeding dares be seen socially until the Yokai is caught or appeased.

A fully human-seeming Yokai could have an entirely normal life aside from its nocturnal exposure. Anyone could be the Shirime, but nobody really wants to check the suspects.

The Shirime could be a symbol of repression. The act of seeing the Shirime’s eye could shock its victims out of closely held inhibitions. A plague of bawdy, irresponsible behavior all centers on that one city block with all the nocturnal obscene exposure cases.

 

The Shirime could also represent the ugliness behind polite society being pulled into the light. A Shirime masquerades as a street reporter exposing the hard truths of child labor, prison reform, and colonialism to an unsuspecting public. Their disruptive pranks and shocking articles offend as many readers as they enlighten.

A Handful of Yokai- Sazae Oni

In many Yokai tales, if an animal or object lives long enough, it transforms into a bizarre supernatural version of its old mundane self. For example, the Sazae (or Turban Snail) is a large sea snail living in Japanese coastal waters.  According to folk tales when a Sazae reaches thirty years of age (or possibly one-hundred) it turns into a Sazae Oni, literally a “Turban Snail Demon”. It reaches the size of a human and grows hands covered in suckers, arms, and a long torso from its spiny, crusty shell. The operculum (a tough door which seals the opening of snail’s shell) sits atop the torso like a bizarre conical head with bulging eyes. Worse, the Sazae Oni is a shapeshifter and often pokes its upper half above the water disguised a beautiful maiden dancing or drowning. If someone paddles or swims out to it, the Sazae Oni eats them. A Sazae Oni is as dangerous on land as on the water. One Sazae travels along the seaside disguised a young lady. She stops at every inn on the road to spend the night and to devour the innkeeper.

 

In the most famous encounter with a Sazae Oni, a ship full of plundering pirates discovered a woman struggling to stay above the waves in the open ocean. Seeing her beauty, the pirates pulled her from the water. When the pirates pressed her for gratitude expressed through carnal acts, she surprised the crew by eagerly agreeing to their wishes. That night she pleased each man on the ship, but in the morning every pirate discovered his testicles were missing. The beautiful woman was really a Sazae Oni, and she slunk through the ship biting off every pirate’s privates as they slept. The monster offered an exchange to the crew: the restoration of their testicles for all the ship’s plunder. The crew agreed.

 

Sazae Oni (Shape Shifting Sea Snail Demon)

Initiative: 4

Physical: 5

Mental: 5

Social: 8

Health Pips: 8 AV: 4

Special Traits:

Alluring Façade- The Sazae Oni can make itself appear as a beautiful woman. Changing to and from this form takes a combat round. Anyone suspicious enough to examine the disguise for monstrous traces may attempt a test of a relevant skill (Perception, Medicine, Lore, etc) with 9 black dice or 6 black dice if they previously encountered a Sazae Oni. If successful they notice details such as a sucker on the palm of the hand, a patch of slimy skin, or bit of shell sticking out under her hair.

Anatomical Theft- If the Sazae Oni’s bite attack does 9 or more damage to an opponent after applying Armor Value, the Sazae Oni may choose to do no damage at all. Instead, they cleanly and painlessly bite off a part of the opponent’s anatomy. The wound heals instantly, but the victim suffers -2 to a relevant attribute until the Sazae Oni restores the stolen body part.

Damage: Bite (12)

 

Adventure Ideas:
While the original tale of testicle taking might be too spicy for most tables, the idea of a monster stealing body parts off a living being for ransom is terrifically creepy. For a blackmailing monster, there’s no downside. Either they get paid or they put the purloined anatomical parts to sinister uses. There must be someone with money looking for healthy body parts somewhere.

While the Sazae Oni holds its own in combat, it’s a monster with a blackmailing brain making it a perfect menace to high society. Who is the mysterious lady making her way through this social season’s crop of eligible bachelors and why do her old flames limp and refuse to talk about her?

Japanese gourmets prize Sazae as a tasty delicacy. The demand might be even higher for the rare and dangerous flesh of the Sazae Oni or the flesh harvested by the Sazae Oni.

The idea of a sea monster turning into a desirable woman on land to hunt men is almost an inversion of the selkie, a sea creature turning into a desirable woman on land captured by a man and forced to marry. Is the Sazae Oni an agent of the sea’s revenge coming to reclaim its children imprisoned on land?