#Fiend Groupings — War, Curse, Faith, Trade

Contents

Read the fiend classes one by one and you see monsters. Read them in groups and you see a power.

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#Opening Fragment — Four Rooms

Beneath the Hannyakai there were four rooms.

In the first room, weapons were cleaned. Before the blood had dried, the map of the next battle was spread out.

In the second room, the names of sickness, poison, and souls were written on the same sheet.

In the third room, the spirit tablet, the divine body, and the curse text were set on the same altar.

In the fourth room, gold, contracts, dissection records, and machine parts were bound into one ledger.

The archivist said, "A fiend is fearsome even alone. But once the same excuse becomes an organization, from there on it is war."

#Why Read Them in Groups

The 12 fiend classes are each an independent class. But in a campaign, several easily appear together within a single power.

A grouping is not a new rule of classification. It is a reading tool for the GM to build a power and a scene quickly.

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#War and Body

Targets: Shurado, Jikiniki, Kekka, Tengushi

Central questions:

• How far does the body become a weapon?
• Can the body of war go on living even after the war ends?
• At what moment do the hunt, the dance, flight, and frenzy sever human ties?

Well-suited scenes:

• A festival after the battlefield.
• A mountain path where the line between predator and protector blurs.
• A castle town where a beautiful stage becomes rule by fear.
• A scene where one who looks down from the sky forgets the names on the ground.

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#Curse and Death

Targets: Dokuchushi, itako, Shikome-no-Tsukai

Central questions:

• Is invisible suffering less cruel than war?
• Is holding on to the dead love, or possession?
• Does the one who can open a boundary also bear the duty to close it?

Well-suited scenes:

• In a village where sickness spreads, no one can see the enemy.
• The voice of a dead family member blocks the choice of the living.
• To close the gate of Yomi, one must ask the one who first opened it.
• The one who made the poison is asked for the antidote.

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#Faith and Punishment

Targets: Kaibutsu, Tatarigami, Shikome-no-Tsukai

Central questions:

• If salvation fails, can punishment take the place of faith?
• Whom does a holiness that does not move crush?
• Is the one who calls on a god's name hiding his own rage?

Well-suited scenes:

• Villagers who came to pray are put on trial before the temple.
• To guard a Kaibutsu that will not move, the living die one by one.
• The Tatarigami's punishment looks right at first.
• A cult's doctrine steals the language of the victims.

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#Knowledge and Trade

Targets: Tesshin, Yorijin, Zakkasho, Dokuchushi

Central questions:

• When does the desire to understand become the desire to dissect?
• Is a judgment with feeling removed truly clean?
• When everything is given a price, where does a promise without a price go?

Well-suited scenes:

• In the black market, a hero's name is sold as merchandise.
• One of the specimens in the laboratory still speaks.
• One with a machine body processes the voice of an old family member as an error.
• The Zakkasho sells the same goods to both camps.

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#Examples of Assembling a Power

A power usually grows stronger when two groupings are mixed rather than built from one alone.

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#GM Principles

A fiend grouping is not a device for lengthening the list of enemies. It is a tool for seeing what excuse a power shares.

A good fiend power holds this single sentence.

We crossed [taboo] because of [wound], and now we call it [doctrine/trade/war/research].

With this sentence in hand, each fiend class's role falls into place naturally.

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A fiend falls alone, but a power attaches a name tag to the fall and makes it an org chart.