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.

A Handful of Yokai- Hanzaki

The streams and rivers of Japan hide monsters. Beneath fast-flowing water, the lumpy brown and black skin of the Hanzaki (also known as Ōsanshōuo or "Japanese giant salamander”) hides the predator as it stalks for fish and frogs. This camouflages works incredibly well considering the Hanzaki’s great size. While only the second largest salamander species in the world, an adult Hanzaki measures almost five feet from the tip of its tail to its wide mouth. Japanese folklore teaches Hanzaki continue growing until the day they die. As the centuries pass, venerable Hanzaki mature into truly monstrous Yokai, able to swallow livestock or a human with a single gargantuan gulp.

In the most famous legend of a rampaging Hanzaki, a young man named Miura no Hikoshiro stepped forward to save his village from the monster’s predation. Immediately after Miura dove into the deep lake sheltering the Hanzaki, the Yokai swallowed the villager’s defender whole. Fortunately, the villager kept his wits enough to slice the gigantic salamander in two with his sword from inside its belly.

 

Soon after the villager’s finished celebrating Miura’s victory, strange noises disturbed the hero’s household. Something unseen slammed on the door and cried out at night. Then the entire Miura family died. The villagers assumed the ghost of the Hanzaki cursed the family and sought the monster’s forgiveness. They erected a shrine to the Yokai and worshiped it as a god. Appeased, the Hanzaki’s ghost ended its vengeance. Strangely, Hanzaki means “cut in half” from the belief that if a salamander were bisected the two pieces would grow two new Hanzaki. Miura sliced his foe in two. Perhaps he was haunted by two ghostly salamanders.

 

Hanzaki (Gigantic 30 foot-long river salamander)

Initiative:

Physical: 8

Mental: 2

Social: 2

Health Pips: 22 AV: 4

Special Traits:

Gulp- The Hanzaki grapples by gulping down its opponents. If the target of the grapple wins the test, they escape. If the Hanzaki wins, their opponent slides down the monster's throat. The Hanzaki may perform a free crush action (damage 7) each round on swallowed opponents. The Hanzaki may also have more than one opponent trapped in its throat at a time. 

To escape the Hanzaki’s grapple, the opponent must fight their way out by making 3 successful unopposed attacks with 3 black dice to every attack. They may attempt all three attacks in one round by performing multiple actions as normal.

Damage: Stomp (10)

Adventure Ideas

Killing a monster is not the end of the fight if it can come back as a ghost and haunt a hero's family. It can’t be killed again, so some sort of truce or arrangement may be the only option. Are there lawyer-mediums brokering cursing contracts between the living and the dead? The ghost can only stalk certain members of the family on certain days of the week. An offering of sheep or gold buys off purposefully malignant misfortune for a day or two.

A small, remote village worships a monster as a god to avoid further destruction. Over time, the worship outwardly devolves into annual festivals and folksy traditions but devout followers practice the old ways indoors. The religion’s roots run through the village, reinforced by certain boons brought by the monster’s blessings. When a brave warrior disappears after riding out to save the village from the false god’s tyranny, it may be the work of the monster’s disciples, not the monster.

Even the most monstrous Hanzaki sticks close to water. For salamanders of a more incendiary nature, see this previous monster post.

A Handful of Yokai- The Sakabashira

Followers of Animism believe spirits live in all things living and unliving. If true, even the most humble objects close at hand harbor vengeful resentment towards its owner for constant misuse. When spirits avenge their owner’s treasonous neglect, they are a Yokai.

 

Occasionally while constructing a home, builders erect a wooden pillar opposite to its orientation as a tree. Planting its wood upside down pains and angers the spirit of the tree from which the wood was cut.  Late at night,  the personification of the tree’s leaves, the Sakabashira, manifest to disturb the sleeping household. They cause loud groans and creaks, awakening the occupants throughout the quiet night. The sounds of cracking wood may even form words and sentences complaining of the pillar’s bodily pain. These small spirits work together, violently shaking entire buildings and breaking treasured possessions. The reach of the Sakabashira extends beyond the afflicted home, cursing the occupants to bring bad luck. Those afflicted lose fortunes, loved ones, or even their houses.

 

Strangely, some Japanese builders purposefully construct homes with one upside down pillar to ensure good luck. Superstition says a once a home is finished it begins to fall apart, so they leave a roof with a few tiles missing or purposefully flip a pillar wrong way up. A homeowner has to wonder how much bad luck is good luck worth?

 

Mob of Sakabashira (Small trouble-causing leaf spirits)

Initiative: 8

Physical: 4

Mental: 3

Social: 3

Health Pips: 10

Special Traits:

Unlucky- During each round of combat, every living opponent of the Sakabashira takes 1 point of damage every round, regardless of armor, from stubbed toes, banged foreheads, doors slammed into faces, and other assorted “accidents”. They may avoid this damage by carefully watching for wrinkled carpets, ball bearings, or other sources of “accidents”. This requires no roll but does count as an action.

Damage: Miniscule fists and handy obstacles (3)

Adventure Ideas

Famous trees fill the forests of the British Isles, such as Old Knobbley (rumored to have been a hiding place of accused witches), the gnarled oak trees of Wistman’s Wood (where dishonest tin miners were forced to swallow a tablespoon of molten metal) or The Royal Oak (King Charles II hid from Parliamentary troops beneath its branches during the English Civil War). Magic and history already stain the wood of these trees. Improperly using these trees for ignominious purposes could bring all sorts of bad luck.

 

Once the investigators correctly identify the Sakabashira, the next problem is identifying the offensive and offended pillar. Next comes a magical sweep of the house. A magnetist or other gifted individual could sense through the home like a metal detector. If worse comes to worst, every pillar gets flipped until the problem stops. Of course, turning the wrong pillar could cause even more Sakabashira.

If a pillar in a house doesn’t excite terror, the Sakabashira could be caused by some other wood shaped into a helpful tool such as a tobacco pipe, ship’s mast, or a rifle stock.

The concept of a Sakabashira rhymes nicely with my version of gargoyles being magically connected to buildings. A faulty gargoyle could cause all sorts of disturbances to its home such as strange thumps, quakes the foundation, or structural damage much like this Yokai. If it’s as simple as accidentally turning its base material upside down before carving, it’s a wonder any work properly. You can read more about my gargoyles here.

A Handful of Yokai- An Introduction to the Monstrous

Aside from a pleasant peak at Constantinople, this blog keeps its eyes focused on the British Isles to discover interesting fodder for Victoriana adventures. Understandable but adventures lie in every corner of the world. We’re spinning the globe towards the Far East to bite into Japanese Yokai.

Simply, Yokai are monsters and spirits of Japanese folklore, however, the word yokai also encompasses any spooky unexplained phenomena such as lights in the sky or mystifying nocturnal noises. The first recorded use of the word from the first century simply describes a general feeling of unease pervading the imperial court. Even just looking at the category of the overtly monstrous Yokai, an incredible variety of bizarre origins, horrifying habits, and deviant details presents rich possibilities for plots and encounters.

Some Yokai spring from superstitions passed on through stories explaining bad luck or mysterious noises. Others started as village deities fallen out of religious practice and into children’s nightmares. Scholars recorded these folktales and myths in compendiums. During the exploding popularity of printed books in the 1700s, Japanese authors then fabricated brand new Yokai to meet the ravenous demand for new ghost stories. They created their Yokai with puns, parody, and satire, which, although initially humorous, made these later Yokai even more bizarre and sinister when viewed outside 18^th century Japanese culture. By the 1850s, strange legends leaked out of Japan from Dutch trade or orientalist travel narratives, bizarre anecdotes of shape-shifting animals and regular everyday objects brought to life. Yokai stories bring to the table everything I look for in a great ghost story, and, as we know on this blog, nothing is more Victorian than that.

Even the most prolific sources of stories only gave their Yokai a few lines of description or reported a couple anecdotal encounters. These sketchy fragments burn two or three interesting details into the reader’s imagination while leaving huge blanks ready for our purposes. I’ll present a Yokai each week along with stats and special rules for the Victoriana role-playing game. Each post concludes with a slew of adventure ideas ready for scenarios set in late Edo Japan or mid-Victorian London. Finally, in the last post of the series, I’ll discuss some possible rationales and excuses derived from history for getting these Japanese monsters into Victorian Britain.

Adventure Ideas

In a campaign of Yokai hunting, short specific descriptions in a scholarly Yokai compendium could provide exactly the right amount of information to recognize a Yokai without giving spectacularly helpful on how to tackle it. The more playful and parodic compendiums could give desperately needed answers if you can solve the puzzles and satirical elements. The Yokai hunters just have to figure out which book they have to pull out in the middle of a fight.

Similar to the satirical Yokai, any number of Victorian magazines and periodicals use allegorical creatures in their political cartoons to represent governments, countries, or concepts. If one achieved physical form, a rampaging caricature or symbol would physically, morally and politically endanger the masses.