#Designing Yoma Masterminds

Contents

A yoma mastermind is remembered not by high numbers but by a repeated law, food, name, and gate.

#Opening Vignette - The Master of the Weeping Castle Gate

The ruined castle's gate had burned long ago. Yet on rainy nights, the sound of someone weeping came from before the castle gate.

At first they said it was a woman's weeping. Next they said it was a horse's whinny. The third time they said the castle gate itself wept.

The villagers below the castle set sake at the site of the gate. When sake was set, the weeping stopped. But the next day, someone's name was carved with a fingernail beside the sake jar. Within a few days, the owner of that name climbed up to the castle ruins and did not return.

One year, a young warrior overturned the sake jar.

The weeping stopped. Instead came the sound of the castle gate opening. There was no gate. Yet from within the castle, hundreds of footsteps began to descend.

Only then did the village elder speak.

"That did not drink the sake. It made it so that we could not say the war was over."

#Scent - A Mastermind Is Not the Cause of an Incident but the Center of a Law

A human mastermind makes a plan. A yoma mastermind makes a law. A person who enters that law repeats the same action without realizing it. They offer sake, hide their name, do not cross the bridge, and tell the kaidan to their child.

To use a yoma mastermind well, decide "what it makes the people around it keep doing" rather than "what it will do."

#Law - 7-Stage Design Procedure

Stage	Question	Result
1	What does this yoma eat	The aspect of harm
2	Where is it complete	Territory and battlefield
3	By what name does it grow strong	Information war and weakness
4	To what gate is it bound	Conditions for sealing, retreat, and reappearance
5	What kin does it command	Minion/Veteran squads and Elite officers
6	What does it promise humans	cult, dealers, bystanders
7	What way is there to stop it other than killing	The structure of the ending

#What to Attach Before Strengthening Numbers

Element	Reason
Territory	Only by knowing where it is strong can detour and preparation be possible.
Taboo	Creates the mastermind's scene rule.
Kin	Keeps the boss from appearing alone.
Gate	Continues the incident even after combat.
Resolution Condition	Creates an ending other than destruction.

#Operation - A 4-Act Mastermind Campaign

Act	Scene	The Yoma's Form
Act 1	Omen	Only the name, sound, harm, and taboo are visible.
Act 2	Kin	Minion/Veteran squads and Elite underlings appear.
Act 3	Territory	The yoma's stronghold and gate are revealed.
Act 4	Confrontation	Defeat the head, or resolve the gate and the desire.

The mastermind need not show itself right away in Act 1. Rather, at first it is stronger to show only the rules it has made.

#Mastermind Types in Detail

#Master of the Mountain

Food: the arrogance of intruders, severed rites.
Gate: mountain gate, waterfall, pass.
Kin: tengu, kodama, yamauba, kamaitachi.
Way to stop it: restore the mountain-path taboo, halt the logging, restore the forgotten rite.

#Predator of the Battlefield

Food: continuing orders, unburied corpses.
Gate: castle gate, battlefield grave, banner.
Kin: oni, armored onryo, gaki, jikininki.
Way to stop it: resolve the last military order, record the names, bury the banner.

#Lord of Kaidan

Food: eyewitness accounts, wrongly spread names, the repetition of fear.
Gate: book, picture, song, posting, pleasure quarter/theater.
Kin: yoko, nopperabo, modern yoma, onryo.
Way to stop it: reveal the first rumor, separate the false variant, fix the name.

#Yoma That Would Become a God

Food: people who offer fear like a rite.
Gate: a defiled shrine, an altar, a sealing stone.
Kin: Tatarigami-type underlings, onryo, cult humans.
Way to stop it: separate faith from fear, and cut the system of offerings.

#The Gate of the Spirit Realm

For a yoma mastermind, the gate is both a weakness and a throne. If the gate closes it grows weak, but while the gate exists it can retreat or summon kin again even after being incapacitated.

Recommended handling:

Grade	Gate Effect
Elite-grade mastermind	1 battle; after Wounds 0, retreats to the Spirit Realm. When the gate is sealed, cannot reappear.
Lord-grade mastermind	If the gate remains, it revives or its avatar reappears in the next incident.
Final boss	It is fully extinguished only if two or more of gate, name, and food are cut.

#Faction Response

Faction	Way of Seeing the Mastermind
Kagura Domain	Sets the head and stronghold as military objectives. Fast, but apt to miss the resolution condition.
Hiei League	Strong at the rite that cuts the gate and the karma. Needs time.
Enryokan	Strong at revealing the motive and the rules. May underestimate the mastermind.
Biu Mountain	Attempts bargaining and discord. Comes dangerously close to a Lord of Kaidan.
Sakai Guild	Through the circulation of rumor and goods, can both grow the mastermind and carry its weakness.
Kunitomo Guild	Builds gate-sealing devices and capture devices, but on failure tears the gate further.

#Closing Line

A yoma mastermind is not completed in the final battle. It already begins to grow the moment the first rumor is passed on wrong.