#Onryo, Undead, and Curse Lines

Contents

Not all the dead become yoma. But those who died without a name, those who were called wrongly, those who went unremembered stand long before the gate.

---

#Fiction Intro — The Nameless Grave

Behind the village there was a single grave. The gravestone bore no letters.

The children avoided that grave. The adults did not say who was buried there. Each year when the rains came the grave's soil washed down a little, and each time one of the villagers confused their own name.

One year, a wandering monk wrote on the gravestone, "One Who Awaits a Name."

That night the villagers all dreamed the same dream. A man in armor was kneeling. He did not give thanks. He only said.

"It is not yet my name."

The next day the letters on the gravestone were gone, and beneath them a single small word surfaced.

Wrong.

---

#Scent — An Onryo Wants Accuracy More Than Revenge

An onryo is not simply an angry ghost. Who killed it, what was taken from it, by what name it should be called, what rite was omitted — these matter. To make an onryo case a good story, decide "what must be set right" rather than "kill it and it's over."

---

#Law — Precision of the Grudge

---

#Variant Data — Named Onryo

[Named Onryo]
Condition: onryo, onryo proper, or armored onryo.
Effect: when its name is called at the scene, its next `[Incorporeal]` attack +1.
Cost: once its exact name in life and the circumstances of its death are revealed, Defense -1, Domination -1.
Resolution: set right two of name, death, or unresolved duty, and it can withdraw without combat.

#Representative Stats: General Without an Epitaph

#Scent

It has the shape of a warlord who died on the battlefield, yet something in it is empty. The armor once belonged to a man of rank, but the place where the family crest should be has worn away to nothing, and the face within the helmet is as blank as a gravestone with its letters gone. The spear in its hand is only a shaft, its blade sunk into mist so that only an outline blurs. Stand close, and however hard you try to recall who he was, a single name catches in the throat to the very end and will not come.

The voice is low and parched, and it repeats the same question — what do you call me. Answer wrongly, and in that instant even the names of your own allies slip from the tongue. The smell is of rain-soaked iron and turned earth. The cold, damp air of the graveside surrounds it, and though cut down it scatters into mist, only to gather again a single step to the side. What comes before anger is pity. This being did not come to take revenge; it cannot depart because it has not yet received the one exact line to be carved on its own gravestone.

General Without an Epitaph (無碑將) — Elite
Wounds 4, Defense 15, Energy 9
Courage+2, Finesse+1, Wisdom+2, Presence+2
Domination +4

Special: The Exact Name — call its name in life exactly and disclose the circumstances of its death, and Wrong Epitaph cannot be used for this battle.

---

#Yomi Core-Zone Variants

If an onryo is the death of an individual, the Yomi Core-Zone line is the administration of death. Enma-doji, Shikome, seed of Izanami, Konryu Fragment, and yumekui do not end merely by releasing a grudge. They bring the law, the pursuit, the dream, and the fragments from beyond the gate.

#Enma-doji's Verdict

[Enma-doji's Verdict]
Condition: Enma-doji, or an Elite-rank onryo acting for the Yomi tribunal.
Effect: at the start of combat, declare one charge. A target who has taken an action matching that charge takes -1 on its first defense check.
Cost: if the verdict is false or omitted evidence is revealed, the Enma-doji line's next check -2.
Resolution: rebut by separating charge, evidence, and executor, and the sealing-rite Target Number -2.

Enma-doji is less an enemy to bring down than a gate to close again. Even after a combat victory, if the verdict cannot be burned, the same charge repeats in another village.

#Yomi Pursuit Squad

A pursuit variant for when you use Shikome and seed of Izanami together.

[Yomi Pursuit Squad]
Condition: Spirit Realm interface, Core Zone, a region of failed funeral rites.
Effect: pursuit check +1 in a flight scene. After a scene in which the target used Wounds recovery, its Domination +1 on its next appearance.
Cost: call three or more names of the living wrongly, and the pursuit squad loses its direction for 1 scene.
Resolution: prove publicly whether the pursued target is living or dead, and the pursuit is severed.

The seed of Izanami does not come because it loves death. It comes to set in order the administrative error of "one who should already be dead." So the focus of persuasion is not good and evil but the grounds for the living-or-dead determination.

#Dream-Eating Fragment

An imagery-type variant combining yumekui and Konryu Fragment.

[Dream-Eating Fragment]
Condition: a campsite, a sickbed, a nightmare, a small gate left unclosed.
Effect: if it appears at a Lull Phase, it opposes 1 target who received recovery with Presence. A failed target takes -1 on the first check of the next scene.
Cost: find the original object of the dream, and this variant cannot make a direct attack.
Resolution: have three people record the same dream differently, and the fragment's name splits, Domination -1.

The yumekui is frightening when it erodes rest rather than combat. Do not forbid recovery itself; leave behind "what was lost despite resting."

---

#The Gate of the Spirit Realm

For onryo and undead, the gate is the place where what should flow away has been blocked. A grave whose funeral rite was cut off, a gravestone whose name was erased, a false record, a corpse that never returned — these make the gate flow backward.

The way to close the gate is usually not destruction but ordering.

• Recovery of the corpse.
• Recording of the name.
• Deletion of the wrong charge.
• Acknowledgment by the perpetrator.
• Restoration of the severed rite.

---

#Faction Response

---

#Operation — How to Strengthen an Onryo

When strengthening an onryo, raise the difficulty of resolution rather than damage output.

---

#Closing Line

An onryo is not the dead. It is a name not yet called properly.