#Beast, Object, and Place Yoma

Contents

Some yoma do not resemble people. A long-lived beast, a discarded tool, a road that does not return, a house that has grown eyes — they remember longer than people do.

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#Opening Vignette - The Master of the Storehouse

The storehouse door was locked from the inside.

The master held the key, and the lock was on the outside. Yet the door would not open. From within came the clatter of dishes, the sound of a sickle being sharpened, the working of a loom.

The master's father said.

"Half the things in that storehouse were used by your mother. You didn't bow when you threw them away."

When the night deepened, a single old broom came out through the gap in the door. A white slip of paper was tied to the broom's tip.

On it was written in crooked letters.

When the master changes, one must give greeting.

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#Scent - Old Things Remember People

Beast, object, and place yoma shake the world in which humans believe themselves to be the center. A cat inherits a house, a tool appraises its master, a road chooses whom to send, a house opens its eyes.

In this kind of yoma, fear and affection coexist. They are frightening yet familiar, dangerous yet sometimes wronged. They work well as companion yoma or long-running NPCs.

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#Law - Three Branches of Variants

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#Variant Data - The Master of the Storehouse

[The Master of the Storehouse]
Condition: tsukumogami, mokumokuren, bakeneko, house-type yoma.
Effect: Within a storehouse or mansion, Infiltration Perception +2. Move 1 tool gimmick in the same place during the lull phase.
Cost: If a fire or large-scale destruction occurs, lose 1 Wound.
Resolution: If the master of the storehouse's things is acknowledged and a rite is held, hostility can be lifted.

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#Representative Stats: The Awakened Storehouse

#Scent

From the outside it is just an old storehouse. Moss-covered earthen walls, a warped door leaf, a faded nameplate. But the knots in the wall and the cracks in its surface come, at a certain moment, to follow a person like eyes, and once someone has noticed it, he can never again see that wall as an empty wall. The dishes and sickles and looms heaped inside shift their places without the master's hand, and the door locks from within even when the key is on the outside.

The sounds grow distinct at night. The clatter of dishes, the rasp of a sickle being sharpened, the going to and fro of a loom drift out from within the empty storehouse. The smell is of aged dust and oil, and of wood gone moldy from being long shut away. This being appraises a person more than it hates one — did you bow when you discarded it, did you give greeting when the master changed. Before that reckoning is done, it merely pushes out first, through the gap in the door, a single slip of paper with crooked writing on it, and it seldom lunges first.

The Awakened Storehouse (開眼藏) - Elite
Wounds 5, Defense 14, Energy 8
Courage+0, Finesse+1, Physique+3, Wisdom+2, Presence+2
Domination +4

Special: One Body with the House - If the storehouse's central pillar is purified or the nameplate is reattached, Domination -2.

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#Additional Variant Packages

Beast, object, and place yoma come in many kinds. Rather than making each into a new stat block, attach the packages below to a canonical stat block to give it a different face.

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#The Nue's Night Cry

[The Nue's Night Cry]
Condition: nue, composite beast yoma, ominous omen.
Effect: In the scene before its first appearance, all Perception checks Target Number +1. On the first round of combat, the nue's first [Kata] technique check +1.
Cost: If the direction of the cry is recorded three times, the nue's ambush effect vanishes.
Resolution: If the place that actually became a gate — among the roofs, trees, and wells where the cry was heard — is found, Domination -1.

The nue is strong when used as a portent of "what is about to happen" rather than as a mere monster. Before its attack, first show illness, crop failure, court unrest, and the disappearance of mountain beasts.

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#Emissaries of the Waterway

This is a water-system package that ties umibozu, funayurei, kappa, Ryugu emissary, and ayakashi to the same river or sea incident.

[Emissaries of the Waterway]
Condition: river, sea, harbor, ferry crossing, ship battlefield.
Effect: Underwater or in a wet zone, a water-system yoma's move cost -1 Energy. Checks to seize ships, bridges, and ferryboats +1.
Cost: If it fights on dry land for 2 rounds or more, Domination -1.
Resolution: If the name or offering owed to the master of the waterway is returned, the hostility may end.

An ayakashi is better as a sign on the water's surface than as a lone enemy. It changes the battlefield with a black band seen in the distance, a hand scraping the ship's hull, a tide that moves the wrong way.

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#Night Guests

This is a package of yoma that come into human homes and to the table, such as rokurokubi, bakeneko, tanuki, and yamauba.

[Night Guests]
Condition: private house, inn, mountain lodge, pleasure quarter, merchant house.
Effect: In the first scene, it behaves like a human. On a failed Perception Target Number 13, the identity cannot be pinned down.
Cost: If one of the appointed food, bedding, or form of greeting is wrong, its true nature is revealed.
Resolution: If you clearly decide whether to receive it as a guest or drive it out as an intruder, the yoma's rules are fixed too.

The rokurokubi is best handled as a watcher of the night streets and the bedside rather than as a "monster whose neck stretches." How much it had been watching is the heart of the fear.

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#The Spider-Den Hunting Party

Attach this to kumo, poison-spider hunters, and underground-storehouse-type yoma.

[The Spider-Den Hunting Party]
Condition: forest, underground, low-ceilinged storehouse, abandoned mine.
Effect: The Target Number of the first binding or immobilizing effect +1. If there is a poison zone in the same zone, on a successful attack the target's next move cost +1 Energy.
Cost: If one of fire, smoke, or a great bell's toll is used, binding checks -1 during the next round.
Resolution: If the central knot of the web is cut, the poison-spider hunter squad's Cohesion -1.

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#Human Accomplices

Attach this to enemies who are not yoma but connect a yoma incident to human society, such as a bandit chief.

[Human Accomplices]
Condition: bandit chief, corrupt official, dealer, cult group.
Effect: Knows one of the yoma's weaknesses or feeding routes. It can be obtained through Negotiation, but threats alone will not make them talk.
Cost: If the accomplice is incapacitated, the yoma organization changes its plan in the next scene.
Resolution: If the accomplice's structure of profit is cut, the human shield over the yoma incident disappears.

Even when weaker than a yoma, a human accomplice makes an incident drag on. Separating the combat to defeat the yoma from the investigation to expose the human accomplice makes the story firmer.

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#The Gate of the Spirit Realm

For object and place yoma, a gate is a trace of long-repeated use. A door opened and closed every day, a vessel used for a hundred years, a storehouse no one ever repaired, a pass everyone crosses but no one offers rites at — these become gates.

The way to close a gate is more often tidying the relationship than destruction. If you repair, polish, return, name, and observe courtesy when discarding, the gate grows smaller.

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#Faction Response

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#Operation - Familiar but Dangerous Yoma

This line works well as a supporting villain "always welcome whenever it appears" or as a companion candidate. But making it only cute erases its yoma-ness. Always keep one taboo and one aspect of harm.

Example: A talking bakeneko can be amusing. But it remains a yoma only if there is a rule that it shatters, night after night, the rice bowl of one who starved its master.

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#Closing Line

Old things are not failing to speak. People simply begin to listen too late.