#Designing Original Yoma Organizations

Contents

A yoma organization need not run on meetings and posts. Merely following the same rule of the night makes it an organization.

#Opening Vignette - The Procession's Promise

The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons had no ledger. There was no one to record names, no one to call the order.

Yet the procession passed the same road on the same night every year. At the front went a lantern with no light, and behind it followed faceless children. In the middle walked armored figures holding broken spears, and at the very end walked a woman wearing a fox mask.

One year, an oni, drunk on sake, rushed out of the procession and attacked a village. The next day, that oni's horn was hung along the procession's path.

Only then did the people understand. That they had no leader did not mean they had no rules.

#Scent - An Organization Begins from a Shared Desire

A yoma organization is different from a human one. Even with no chain of command, if they share the same desire they move together. If they spread the same name, guard the same mountain, are bound to the same battlefield, and punish the same taboo, it is an organization.

Therefore, when making a yoma organization, decide the shared desire before the posts.

#Law - 9 Items of an Organization

Item	Question
Name	Is it a name given by humans, or a name the yoma call themselves?
Food	By what is the whole organization sustained?
Territory	In which has it taken root: mountain, castle, market, road, dream, or media?
Rule	What is the taboo the members cannot break?
Human Contact	Who connects to it: offering, dealer, worshipper, victim, or researcher?
Rank and File	What repeated action do the Mob/Minion yoma perform?
Action Unit	What mission does the Veteran-grade squad take on?
Officers	What kaidan do the Elite-grade yoma represent?
Collapse Condition	What way is there to dismantle it other than killing the head?

#Operation - Organization Scale

Scale	Composition	Use
Small kaidan	1 Elite head + 1-2 Minion/Veteran squads	a single-act incident
Regional organization	2-3 Elite officers + 2-4 Veteran-grade action units	a regional campaign
Hundred-Demons force	1 Lord head + 3+ Elite officers + gate network	a long campaign

#Organization Trait

To give an original yoma organization a common character like co's Faction Trait, handle it with 1 [aptitude]. Build it in as a unique trait for Minion/Veteran/Elite yoma, and when a yoma PC or human ally gains it, use 1 general or background trait slot.

Organization Trait Example	Effect
Procession of the Night Road	During the first round, move cost -1 Energy. No effect in a scene where the sun rises.
Sharing the Name	When a yoma of the same organization is incapacitated, the one that remains gains +1 to its next check.
The Gatekeepers	Around a gate the organization holds, Perception +1 and disengage-obstruction +1.
Rumor Food	In a scene with many witnesses, Domination +1. But it is lost at once when the identity is revealed.

#Organization Examples

#The Black Mountain Gate

Shared desire: take back the mountain's roads from humans.
Territory: three passes and one abandoned shrine.
Rank and file: kodama that turn roads aside.
Action unit: a Veteran-grade kamaitachi squad.
Officers: mountain-gate tengu, yamauba.
Collapse condition: three villages perform the mountain rite together again.

#The Army Without a Castle Gate

Shared desire: never end the last military order.
Territory: a ruined castle, a battlefield grave, a broken banner.
Rank and file: armored gaki.
Action unit: an armored onryo squad.
Officers: a general with no epitaph, the oni of the red castle gate.
Collapse condition: reveal the wording of the military order and bury the banner.

#The Forgotten Third Mouth

Shared desire: gain a name each time a kaidan is told for the third time.
Territory: the market, the pleasure quarter, the bulletin board, woodblock prints.
Rank and file: nopperabo witnesses.
Action unit: yoko spies, a band of smiling masks.
Officers: the Biu Mountain yoko, the corridor inside the screen.
Collapse condition: separate and announce the first eyewitness account from the false variant.

#Ready-to-Use Organization Cards

The cards below are examples of moving the procedure into an actual incident. Use canonical yoma and squad rules for the numbers, and attach only the organization trait as a common trait.

#The Black Mountain Gate Card

Item	Content
Organization Trait	The Gatekeepers - Perception +1 and disengage-obstruction +1 around the mountain gate.
Rank and file	kodama Mob, kamaitachi Minion.
Action unit	kotengu scout Veteran, kamaitachi Veteran squad.
Officers	mountain-gate tengu, tengu-tsukai, yamauba.
Head	An Elite tengu that has lost its name. When raised to Lord, the whole mountain becomes a gate.
Gate of the Spirit Realm	The wind-path behind the abandoned shrine.
Human contact	A merchant band monopolizing the mountain road, a village that halted the rite, a domain that would use the mountain for war.
Collapse condition	Three villages restore the joint rite and hang the mountain-gate's name again.

Operation: Used as the protagonists' affiliation, it is a difficult patron who teaches the mountain's taboos. Used as an enemy, ambush, getting lost, and scouting denial become the focus.

#The Army Without a Castle Gate Card

Item	Content
Organization Trait	Sharing the Name - When a yoma of the same army is incapacitated, the one that remains gains +1 to its next check.
Rank and file	zakki, gaki, jikininki.
Action unit	armored gaki Veteran, Ko-oni warrior Veteran.
Officers	a general with no epitaph, the oni of the red castle gate.
Head	A Great Oni, or an Elite deputy who received Shuten-doji's military order.
Gate of the Spirit Realm	The main gate of the ruined castle that will not open, and a broken banner.
Human contact	A house that hid the record of defeat, an army that did not recover the corpses.
Collapse condition	Reveal the last military order, and bury the banner and the nameless warriors together.

Operation: It is hard to use as an affiliation. However, an armored onryo squad that temporarily travels with you to expose a war crime is possible. Used as an enemy, it pushes "the order that did not end" rather than combat power.

#The Forgotten Third Mouth Card

Item	Content
Organization Trait	Rumor Food - In a scene with many witnesses, Domination +1. Lost when the identity is revealed.
Rank and file	zakki, nopperabo witnesses, a third-reply Minion squad.
Action unit	yoko spy Veteran, smiling-mask Veteran.
Officers	the Biu Mountain yoko, the corridor inside the screen, a rokurokubi information broker.
Head	A nine-tailed fox that has received Tamamo's shadow, or a nameless modern yoma.
Gate of the Spirit Realm	Market rumor, woodblock prints, postings, repeatedly forwarded letters.
Human contact	A storyteller, a publisher, an impresario, an anonymous rumormonger.
Collapse condition	Separate and announce the first eyewitness account, the second adaptation, and the third lie.

Operation: Used as the protagonists' affiliation, it is an information network, but it always demands a price. Used as an enemy, it muddies "what is fact" before the real enemy does.

#The Gate of the Spirit Realm

A yoma organization uses gates not as points but as lines. When one stronghold gate and several terminal gates are connected, the organization does not end in a single battle.

Gate Role	Function Within the Organization
Stronghold gate	The source of the head and the organization trait.
Terminal gate	The entry and exit route for Minion/Veteran action units.
Rumor gate	The spread route of a kaidan-type organization.
Sealing gate	The prison or throne the organization guards.

#Faction Response

Faction	Organization Response
Kagura Domain	Finds the organization's stronghold and defeats the action units piecemeal.
Hiei League	Closes the gate network one by one. Slow but strong at complete dismantling.
Enryokan	Records the organization trait and the taboo to seek the possibility of a pact.
Biu Mountain	Manipulates the names and rumors inside the organization to sow discord.
Sakai Guild	Bargains with a rumor-network-type organization, or unknowingly supplies its food.
Kunitomo Guild	Tries to seal the terminal gates with devices. On failure, a new passage opens.

#Closing Line

A yoma organization does not wait for orders. If the same night comes to one who broke the same taboo, that is enough.