Hello all! Today, I bring you a real treat - a guest post from David Walters, who, amongst other things, has written and released Ninja, Hachiman themed world for the Avenger! series. Book 0 is available on Amazon now, or you can buy it directly from the Megara website.
On to the post!
On to the post!
The Monstrous Origins Of Ninja!
The world of Orb has
been featured in over a dozen gamebooks, including Fighting Fantasy’s Talisman
of Death and the Way of the Tiger series. Its development has been influenced
by many real-world mythologies, but it is on the Island of Plenty that the
inhabitants and creatures originate from Japanese archetypes. Here David
Walters elaborates on a few such creatures from his latest book Ninja!, the
prequel to the Way of the Tiger Series.
Available on:
Full colour hardback http://megara-entertainment.com/gamebooks.html
Komainu
Komainu
Historically, Komainu are a pair of stone lion statues placed outside shrines to guard against evil spirits. One of the pair always has an open mouth and the other a closed one (as if saying 'a' and 'um', the beginning and end of the Sanskrit alphabet). Together they form the sound of 'aum', a sacred sound used in Buddhism and Hinduism, symbolising the beginning and end of all things. Their origins are from India initially, but then spread to China, Korea and Japan.
On Orb, Komainu are ethereal creatures
from the Spirit Plane, bound to a stone statue of a lion through powerful priestly
rites. They are commonly guardians of shrines and temples on the Island of
Plenty, inanimate until the sanctity of the place they are guarding is
threatened. They fiercely guard the place or treasure they are charged with
defending on behalf of their priestly masters. Once the outer stone shell of
the Komainu is broken, its spirit is released back to the Spirit Plane, leaving
behind an oozing black residue that some mistake for a kind of blood.
Ittan-momen
Originating from tales in the Kagoshima
Osumi region of Japan, an Ittan-momen is a roll of cloth that has been possessed
by an evil spirit. It flies through the air, usually at night, seeking out
victims to smother.
On Orb, Ittan-momen are created from the
funeral shroud of high ranking priests of Death, Lord of Sorrows. If left
undisturbed for a hundred years, Death blesses the shroud with sentience and it
will unravel from its host. It can then fly through the air as if carried on
the breeze, seeking out fresh victims to honour its dark god.
Jikininki
In Buddhist tales from Japan these were
hungry spirits that ate decomposing human corpses, and were said to have a
particularly grotesque appearance like some sort of inhuman cadaver. They
appear in the fable of Muso Kokushi, a Buddhist priest who encounters a
Jikininki when he is a corpse before its burial ceremony.
On Orb, Jikininki are the mutant offspring
of the god Nil, the repulsive Mouth of the Void, and are only
found on the Island of Plenty. They inhabit only the most isolated of areas
where corpses were once bountiful and such places are more commonly found on
the west of the Island, where the Great Civil War laid waste to whole cities.
The skin of a Jikininki is a blubbery, gangrenous green, and their eyeless
faces are dominated by pulsing pustules and sharp teeth.
Jorogumo
Jorogumo translates from Japanese as
‘whore spider’. This was a spider that once it reaches 400 years of age can
transform itself into a beautiful woman. She will sometimes play her biwa (a Japanese
lute) to distract a young man, then bind him in webbing to later devour him at
her leisure. She features in an old tale from Shizuoka in Japanese folklore,
where she tried to trap men by a waterfall.
On Orb, a Jorogumo is created by priests
of Nullaq, The Supreme Queen who Rules in Malicious Envy, whose symbol is the
spider. Her priests perform dark rites on a captured female virgin, including
the insertion (through the ear) of spiders into her brain and the forced
ingestion of spider venom. The girl is then under the control of Nullaq and can
transform between an innocent maiden and a monstrous, deadly form with the
lower torso of a giant spider. She is sent out into the world to ensnare unwary
men, binding them in her webbing before slowly devouring him at her leisure.
Jubokko
In Japanese mythology these are trees that
grow near a place where a massacre occurred, and they have acquired a taste for
human blood as a consequence of drawing up blood through their roots.
On the Island of Plenty on Orb, Jubokko
will sometimes grow near battle sites and look for all purposes like normal
trees (typically a cherry or plum tree). Blood ingested from a human can
sustain them for years at a time, and so they can easily be dormant for decades
before attacking a target with their jagged branches. Human bones can often be
found around the roots, since the tree will grab a target with its branches,
drain it of blood with thorn-like twigs, and leave the remaining corpse to be
eaten by wild animals.
Obakemono/Bakemono
In Japanese, obake means to shapeshift,
and so according to Japanese fables Bakemono and Obakemono were beings who
could transform from one form into another, including inanimate objects. The
terms Bakemono and obake can be used for almost any type of bizarre creature
from Japanese folklore.
On Orb, the Bakemono are ugly, squat
humanoids with taloned arms whose skin comes in various hues from muddy brown
to a sky-like blue. They live in tribes divided amongst racial lines based on
their skin colour. Their innate abilities to transform their appearance have diminished
over time, however some subgroups retain the ability to shapeshift into the
form of another humanoid for a brief period until their battle lust gets the
better of them. Samurai raids have cleared the Bakemono from the more civilised
parts of the Island of Plenty, driving them west across the mountains into the
wild forests where the tribes generally war with each other until united under
some greater authority.
Obakemono are the larger, scaly cousins of
Bakemono, dim witted and no longer able to shapeshift, but freakishly strong
and tough. Often they are associated with a tribe as a champion fighter, although
sometimes they are cast out to wander alone when they have misused their
tremendous strength against the chieftain of the tribe.
Yukionna translates from Japanese as 'snow
woman', an ageless spirit of a beautiful woman with a skin as white as snow.
She is said to have been formed from the spirit of someone who perished in the
snow and who now preys on those lost in a snowstorm. She glides over the snow,
leaving no sign of her passing. She has icy breath that she uses to ruthlessly
kill others, although she is occasionally merciful, as unpredictable as the
snows in the wild places.
On Orb, a Yukionna is one of the old
deities from the Time of Snows, now a shadow of her former power and only found
in the uninhabitable wildernesses on the coldest of nights. She is seen more as
an apparition of something that once was, insubstantial enough to pass through
solid rock if required. She is known to call out to warn of her approach, and
uses her icy breath to freeze the hearts of the most steadfast of travellers.
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