Group Rolls- A Helpful House Rule For Helpful People

During my most recent Victoriana Campaign, I thought up another quick house rule worth sharing on the blog. Everyone needs help sometimes, and this rule helps helpers dramatically helping.

In most cases, characters in Victoriana attempt tasks on their own, or everyone attempts similar tasks at the same time. For example, a dwarf, an elf, and an ogre suspect the library hides a secret passage. All three search for the entrance at the same time, probably at different heights. All three make a Perception + Wits test. Those that succeed, find the book that opens the secret door. Those that fail, look at their successful peers with admiration. Everyone had a chance, but nobody helped each other. They simply all tried the same task at the same time.

Sometimes a task depends on the effort of one person, but others can assist through Group Rolls. The same dwarf, elf, and ogre discover the secret passage leads down to a large sewer canal. A rowboat bobs in the murky sludge. They climb in. As the strongest member of the party, the ogre takes the oars. The elf holds up a lantern and points out obstacles as the dwarf stirs up the water in front of the boat with a stick to ease its passage through the sludge. In this case, the ogre is trying to perform a task, while the elf and dwarf assist.

Page 163 of the Victoriana 3^rd Edition rulebook explains how Group Rolls work. The primary (in this case the ogre) rolls the test as normal, while the assistants (the elf and dwarf) roll the test with only dice from skills in their pool (no attributes). Their net successes count as automatic successes in the primary’s test.

That’s fine, but this is Victoriana. Let’s roll lots of dice and embrace dramatic tension! Here is how Group Rolls work at my table: First the assistants test whatever Skill + Attribute is pertinent to the task just like a regular test. For every success rolled, the primary removes a black die from the dice pool for their test. Then the primary rolls their test with a normal pool and the reduced black dice. If the assistant’s dice pools had black dice, they may roll a foul failure. In which case, they add black dice equal to their test result to the primary’s dice pool.

In this case, the ogre is the primary and the other two adventurers assist them. The ogre is about to roll a Might+ Strength test with six black dice to row the boat through the canal. The elf snagged three successes, directing the ogre to duck their head at low ceilings and avoid rushing water, but the dwarf’s frantic stirrings netted one black die success. Together their efforts reduced the six black dice in the Ogre’s pool down to four. If the ogre succeeds in their test, the party navigates through the secret canal to the cabal’s lair. If not, they wind deeper into the sewer at a pace slow enough for something awful to catch up to them.

This house rule is really a matter of taste. In Victoriana, I prefer more dice and less automatic successes. The rule in the book is fine. It works, but I wholeheartedly prefer this method.

Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Last Bear in England

Merry Christmas! Due to my travels through the hustle and bustle of the season, I'm putting up the last post for 2019 early. Enjoy!

Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past, Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

As Christmas nears, ghostly growls disturb the calm winter nights in the village of Fernhurst in West Sussex. Yearly, villagers witness the ghost of the last bear in England returning to the scene of its death in Verdly Castle. The castle’s location is now a thickly wooded hollow in Verdly Wood with brush growing over the few remaining piles of masonry, but once it was a magnificent hunting tower. On a Christmas day sometime in the early 1000s AD, a bear foraging for food through Verdly Wood stumbled into a pack of hunters from the castle. The hunters attacked. Wounded and worried, the bear turned tail. The bear sought any shelter it could and ran straight into Verdly Castle. In Verdly’s great hall, the hunters cornered their quarry and slew the last bear native to England. Now, the bear returns each year and the hunters’ cries of triumph remind the nation of its loss.

Adventure Ideas

Because of their hibernation cycle, bears serve as a symbol of death and rebirth. They spend the winter in the underworld and emerge brand new each spring. The killing of the last bear gives that creature enough magical significance to make this symbol the literal truth. It’s not a ghost, it’s the magically-powerful undead last bear brought back out of hibernation once a year to feed. 

The skeletal remains of the last bear may lie near the foundations of Verdly castle lost in the ground. The ancient Celts wore bear-shaped amulets and bear teeth for protection. As a symbol of death, extinction, and loss, any part of the legendary bear makes a potent necromantic or enchanted talisman.

Unverifiable rumors claim Verdly Castle was used as a madhouse served by a handful of nuns before falling to a crumbling ruin. The growls and howls might not belong to a bear but an unquiet spirit of unsound mind pretending to be a bear. Anyone trying to put the “ghost bear” spirit to rest just strengthens its delusion. Or the bear’s specter adopted such “wild men” as her cubs. Now another charitable home opens near Verdly Wood. Certain incurable inmates vanish from their cells, although visitors sometimes hear their voices from beneath the ground. Any wardens mistreating their poor charges soon suffer a savage death.

One of the possible (if not portable ) translations of the name Arthur is “bear man”, possibly descended from the Celtic bear goddess, Artio. King Arthur legendarily lies sleeping under the ground waiting for his return and certain druidic circles celebrate King Arthur at the midwinter solstice only a few days from Christmas. When the last bear died the last link to Camelot died with it, but Merlin sends its spirit back to earth on the year’s greatest day of charity and hope. Following the ghostly clues and markers could lead to the Once and Future King.

As terrifically bonkers as the idea of a ghost bear may be, in the more fantastic world of Victoriana the monstrous possibilities stagger the mind. When the last owlbear returns, claw and talon marks mark the trees and screeches fill the air. The pale specter of a unicorn stalks the moors enchanting innocents and impaling the guilty. Gazing into the eyes of a ghostly cockatrice petrifies the soul but leaves the numb empty husk of a body alive.

Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Strange Facts of Old Hall and St. Mary

Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past, Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

The next ghost story of the season leans back into the distant Victorian past and the less distant history of the Battle of Britain, making a haunting fit for Victoriana and Their Finest Hour. In the 1840s, nuns of the Benedictine order fled anti-Catholic sentiment in Hampshire to settle in the village of East Bergholt. They rebuilt the empty, faded chapel into the Church of St. Mary and converted the adjacent manor house, “Old Hall”, into a nunnery.

The air of both St. Mary and Old Hall crowd with legend and spirits. St. Mary lacks a bell tower, possessing instead a medieval-styled bell cage on the church grounds with over 4-ton weight of bells facing upside-down towards the ceiling and rung by dangerously shoving their massive bulk by hand. According to village folklore, workers spent 6 years attempting to build a bell tower, but the devil visited the worksite every night and undid all their labor. In Old Hall, chambers suffer sudden plummets of temperature with no obvious cause and wispy floating figures cross the corridors. 

Shortly after England entered World War II, the Benedictine order evacuated their nuns from East Bergholt due to the village’s location on the now-threatened southern coast. For the same reason, the British Army requisitioned the former nunnery as a barracks for its men stationed in the quiet village. The soldiers in Old Hall soon grew used to their new home and its strange atmosphere. They learned to avoid the main entrance and instead travel around the back of the building to the back door to avoid seeing strange figures and feeling ghostly touches. Each night at 10:50 the door to the sergeant’s mess unlocked and opened about a foot and half as a strange cold seeped into the hall. Soldiers armed with clubs waited on both sides of the door to catch the suspected pranksters. With no culprit on hand night after night, the enlisted men pragmatically started a nightly card game outside the haunted doorway so they could sneak in for a snack after the ghost unlocked the mess. 

 One young private progressing towards sleep in his bunk saw his door suddenly burst open. A faint shadowy figure crossed towards him and laid cold dead hands on his face. At the frigid groping, the private overcame his fear and yelled for help. The specter disappeared as his compatriots entered and turned on the light. The young private’s dark hair had turned white with terror.

Adventure Ideas

St. Mary and Old Hall changed denominations a few times in its history. Both Protestant and Catholic dead decay in their architecture and grounds. Arguments in life lead to disquiet in death. Do the strange unconnected hauntings reflect a ghostly battle of deeply entrenched beliefs? How can a ghost be swayed about the metaphysical facts of eternal life?

A bunch of soldiers stationed in an ancient house with a strange history makes an ideal scenario for a haunting. The men are trained and well-armed but not prepared for the supernatural. As outsiders, they have only church records and legends told in the pub to hint at the cause of their haunting. Best of all, they can’t leave the house without risking a court-martial. 

An inconveniently locked door conveniently unlocked by a ghost could facilitate many schemes. Murderers, thieves, prisoners, and star-crossed lovers could get that much closer to their goal provided they are bold enough to use dead hands to do their dirty work.

In folklore, the glorious ringing of church bells control the weather, grow crops, and drive away devils. The cold metal of most bells has been ceremonially baptized before their installation. Perhaps, the normally sacred church bells of St. Mary sleep in a “cage” on the humble ground due to some stain of evil wrought within the bells. What tragedies occur when a bell gets loose or worse installed high above the ground in a bell tower?

Ghost Stories for Christmas- Lady Dudley’s Pond

Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past,  Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

On September 8, 1560, the servants of Cumnor Hall discovered the body of Amy Robsart at the bottom of a flight of stairs, her neck broken and two deep wounds in her skull. People started theorizing about her death soon after her skin turned cold. Although the coroner pronounced the death an accident, certain suspicious facts and more suspicious rumors wiggled into public knowledge. 

On the day of her death, Amy sent all the servants out of the house. Did she empty Cumnor Hall so she could commit suicide to escape the pain of the cancer in her breast? The house, Cumnor Place, belonged to one of her husband’s servants, Anthony Forster. He was present that day and suspiciously wealthy after her death. Did Forster push Amy to her death so her husband, Robert Dudley, a court favorite of Queen Elizabeth, could marry his admiring monarch? It could also have been an accident caused and exacerbated by her illness. Had the drug Amy took to nullify the pain of her cancer caused her to lose her footing while her bones weakened by her illness shattered down the stairs?

No matter the truth, Amy Robsart’s specter remained in the house long after her death. After repeated manifestations of her ghost on the stairs of Cumnor Hall, a team of nine parsons from nearby Oxford came to lay the ghost to eternal rest. They could not banish her, but together they managed to confine her spirit to one of the fish ponds on the manor grounds. Since then, the pond never freezes even on the coldest of winter nights.

 After many untenanted years, Lord Abingdon, the current owner, demolished empty, crumbling Cumnor Hall in 1810. Laborers rebuilt several nearby churches with materials from the demolitions. The church at the clean and bright village of Wytham gained a window from the room in which Amy Robsart slept her last night. St. Michaels in the center of the village of Cumnor received a gilded stone statue of Queen Elizabeth and a sturdy rear wall. All that remains of Cumnor Hall by 1855, are piles of stone and a chimney on the south side of St. Michael’s churchyard.

Adventure Ideas

The best part of this legend is the ghost transplanted to a different location. While they can’t get rid of a ghost permanently, some clergy can shift the unwanted haunting to a tree, an unused room, or an unlucky cow. Perhaps for a contribution to the poor box, the specter could be persuaded to migrate to the house of a disliked neighbor. Of course, if someone frees the ghost, the descendants of the parsons/ghost-trappers fall prey to a very angry ghost.

If Queen Elizabeth played a part in her death, Amy Robsart’s ghost might be persuaded by certain interested parties to unleash her vengeance on a currently living female monarch. 

Murder victims come back as ghosts, suicide victims come back as ghosts, and accident victims come back as ghosts. Is this ghost vengeful, regretful, or unlucky? That ambiguity makes research before an exorcism very difficult. Conspiracy and opinions handed down for generations hamper local inquires. 

The haunted pond could turn Amy Robsart into a Jenny Greenteeth sort of nightmare hag, ascending from the muck smelling of fish to pull down children unwary enough to fish in her pond.

The church of St. Michaels not only has bits of Cumnor Hall stitched into its architecture but the house’s inhabitants as well. The tomb of Anthony Forster, the man rumored to have killed Amy, sits in a place of veneration next to its altar. Perhaps two ghosts stalk through the church: one seeking to expose the truth and one to obfuscate it.

Perhaps the ghost in the pond is not Amy Robsart’s but her murderer. The ghost descendant’s hired the parsons to quarantine the specter to a quiet pond. If anyone recognized the shadowy figure at the top of the stairs, the scandal would ruin their family line.

Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Starving Children of Bramber Castle

Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past, Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

In 1210, Bramber Castle in Sussex was the happy home of William de Braose, the 4rth Lord of Bramber. Through war, murder, and the patronage of King John, de Braose rose in power in the ranks of Norman nobles. After the de Braose’s capture of Arthur I (a threat to King John’s claim to the throne) and the subsequent suspicious disappearance of Arthur I, his fortunes should have risen even further. Unfortunately for him and his family, King John turned against de Braose, claiming his family owed taxes from the estates given him by the crown. The king took all their land, invaded their holdings in Wales, and captured de Braose’s four children. According to legend, King John had them starved to death.

The few remaining ruins of the Bramber castle sits on the western edge of the village of Bramber. Only the gatehouse tower and a few crumbled fragments of walls stick up out of the hill. The land now belongs to the Duke of Norfolk, but aside from stones for local civic improvements, the ruins provide little more than a pleasant place for picnics. In 1855, the village of Bramber numbers about 150 inhabitants. Most visitors come for an idyllic rest in the country. Tea rooms, tea gardens, and hotels stand next to mills and sheep pens.

At Christmas time, mysterious and emaciated children pleadingly hold out their hands and follow pedestrians through the streets of Bramber. They voicelessly cry for food, but if anyone tries to talk to them, the children vanish. Witnesses claim the apparitions beg around the ruins of the castle as well. Local rumor murmurs the children are the spirits of de Broase’s children, doomed by the death in their bellies to beg for eternity.

Adventure Ideas

Between 1844 and 1855, rail companies tried and failed three times to build a railway north of Bramber with a train station near the castle. While the marshy ground slowed the work, the creepy silent children stalking the worksite didn’t help either.

Given Bramber’s reliance on tourism, local leaders might pay good money to prevent dirty, ghost children from bothering guests to the village.

A peculiar number of children and teenagers in Willaim de Braose’s life died tragic deaths. Aside from this own children, Arthur I vanished in de Braose’s care at age 16. While committing atrocities against the Welsh, de Braose personally tracked down and killed the 7-year-old son of an enemy leader, earning de Braose the nickname "Ogre of Abergavenny". Perhaps the ghostly begging children are the embodiment of de Braose’s crimes for the crown, a cosmic stain looking for charity and justice at Christmas. Does the Ogre still seek out children during the winter?

In reality, King John captured de Braose’s family, but only de Braose’s wife Maud, and eldest son, William, died while imprisoned at Windsor castle or Corfe castle. Their cause of death escaped record. The rest of the children were released in 1218 although other accounts claim two of de Braose’s sons died. There are similar inconsistencies with the number of ghostly children and their genders. Are the children even connected to de Braose? The Victorian age was no stranger to tragic deaths. Is someone covering up their crimes and blaming their ghosts on the story of de Braose?

Bramber is also home to William Potter’s whimsical and naively creepy taxidermy tableaus on display in his families’ pub, the White Lion. Each diorama incorporates scenes of everyday life reimagined with stuffed small animals such as hamsters, birds, rats, kittens, and squirrels. If Potter’s art is as popular with dead Norman children as it is with living Victorian children, all sorts of macabre poltergeist activity could occur. Spectral hunger may manifest as stuffed animal bites.

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?

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.

Hades Hotel p3- The Increasing Evil

The history of the Thames Tunnel is a story of disappointment, death, disease, and civil engineering. It’s a monumental achievement conceived in genius, built-in hellish darkness, revealed in triumph, and abandoned to sleazy ignominy. Such a bizarre structure with such a checkered life makes a perfect lair for whatever malicious forces hide in Victorian London. As Brunel wrote in a letter describing the conditions eroding his workforce’s health and sanity, “The evil is increasing”. You just have to decide what that evil is.

Adventure Ideas

The criminal element of London loves the Hades Hotel. Its privacy, cheap admission, and lack of police oversight beg for more complex illegal ventures than simple thievery. Literal underground prizefights could take over one of the entry shafts for a fight night protected from the elements. Under the rotunda, the spiraling stairs ensure every customer a good seat, while outside, lookouts armed with signaling flares watch for trouble at both ends of the tunnel.

Brunel conceived of his revolutionary method of bricking up the tunnel as his shield inched forward from the Teredo Navalis (more often known as the Naval Shipworm), a mollusk which burrows into a ship’s timber as it’s excrement reinforces the walls of its hole.  After acquiring the loan from the government, perhaps Brunel resorted to desperate invention to ensure his tunnel’s completion and protect his laborers. Instead of a bigger, stronger tunneling shield, Brunel actually used a massive Teredo Navalis fed with necromantic magics to eat through the dirt, darkness, and disease. Some of the diggers remember a “big red worm”. Where is it now, and what effect did its presence have on the tunnel?

At least six diggers drowned in sudden floods during the tunnel’s construction. One ghostly digger remains trapped in the tunnel. He greets visitors garrulously claiming to have gotten mixed up and asks which direction is north and south. If told, he thanks them but as he walks away a huge brackish phantom wave sweeps him out of sight. If a good Samaritan would just walk him the whole way to daylight he might finally reach his final reward.

The grimy marble staircase leading underground suggests a modern temple dedicated to a Chthonic deity of the underworld. Perhaps the Hotel Hades is more than a nickname and the Thames Tunnel leads to the land of the dead.  Some vile force transforms a small part of the Thames’ rushing current into the Styx, the river dividing the land of the living from the Underworld in Greek mythology.

To make extra income during its troubled construction, the Thames Tunnel Company charged sightseers a shilling to brave the descent and visit the excavation to watch the digging underway. What might have been fortuitously dropped in the soggy dirt just before the bricklayers started their work? It makes a secure a hiding place.  Even if they could pinpoint its location, who would ever dare disaster by pulling up bricks from a tunnel under the Thames?

During the excavation, horrible fumes and disease-carrying water filtered up through the disturbed earth blighting the diggers with a multitude of maladies. Now the entire population of a certain street in the East End suffers from the same symptoms. A strange dark fog weakens the sunshine over the street. What else might have been disturbed from its hibernation when Brunel dug too greedily and too deep?