7 Kukoshi Hexes

1. An abandoned house within this forest possesses a well that is reputed to be haunted.  The mother of a changeling who lived here drowned her in the well, throwing the treasure given to her by the yosei father in the well with her. The villagers in Uzo remember the tale and often young hotheads head to the house to get the treasure from the well.  Supposedly the spirit of the murdered changeling slays anyone who takes any of the treasure, and anyone who trades with them for part of it, returning it to the well. In reality a troop of 10 yosei in the shape of men with the features of the carp - relatives of the changeling girl - are the murderers and responsible for returning the treasure. The treasure consists of a coat of golden fish scales (as plate armor), and 200 gp.* The carp-men can identify the coins through some means not known to man.

2. This tiny namazu village is the site of a bloodbath. A group of 7 veteran samurai, all gravely wounded (use only 1d4 to generate HP), have butchered the namazu believing them to have stolen a magic sword from their lord. They have turned the village over, turning up only about 100sp, 5 drums (10sp each), and some jars of fermented fish. They are resting, blaming both themselves and the namazu for not finding the sword.

3. A shrine maiden (as vicar) defends her mountain shrine from a group of 15 bandits who lair in the same hex. She and the bandits have been in a protracted war of attrition for several days, and both have gone without food for that time. What has set them in spite against each other is unknown to both parties. The bandits have only 13 arrows between them now, but the shrine contains a red jade statue of a bull, believed by the shrine maiden to be a kami.

4. The remains of a small castle are the private battleground between two supernatural monsters - a bakeneko (the spirit of a family pet of the Tsuru clan people who lived here) and a gashadokuro sent by the Genbu clan in ages past. Their struggle has been at a standstill for many decades, with the bakeneko protecting the corpses of the family who starved to death in the cellar. If the gashadokuro is destroyed, the bakeneko will reward the destroyers with a charm allowing them to speak to cats 3 times in their lives. This would ideally be used to determine if a cat is a bakeneko and to achieve its loyalty and aid (since the charmed person has aided another of his race). With this done the bakeneko will perish of exhaustion. Upon the corpses of the starved family is enough remaining fine silk to fetch 3000sp.

5. Below these sea cliffs, on a small beach, is a manor made of enormous seashells. It is home to a goblin spider who often climbs the cliffs to go to the nearby road and feign helplessness as an old woman. She uses this to trap young women and men who she spirits back to her palace. There she forces the young women to weave fine clothes from her silk, and she devours the men. She has several tapestries worth 1000gp in total (most depicting the perfidy of men), and 3 suits of silk cloth that are hard as mail and would fetch a price equal to plate armor if sold.

6. A pond in this hex is visited daily by a ponderously fat foul changeling who comes here to devour frogs. He is dressed only in tattered rags and does not know how to speak to humans, who he fears greatly. He has the ability to turn invisible once per day and will use this to flee from anyone who approaches.

7. This spot of forest was once home to a battle, with arrows still stuck in trees and the occsional bit of armor or shaft of a spear poking through the dirt. The craven servant of an Okami clan mahotsukai is searching here for a "heavenly armor." He is under a geas to find it here as punishment for some perceived slight. Unfortunately for him, the armor was looted years ago and currently resides in the treasure of a Byakko clan samurai some miles away. Even more unfortuantely, the wording of the geas would mean it would have to be recovered, brought to this battle site, and then found by him for his mission to be successful.

*The World of Nightwick uses 1sp = 1xp.

Unfocused thoughts on Kukoshi

This is one of those posts I write to exorcise an idea I have so I can keep running whatever I'm running (in this case, Nightwick). Sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't. This one is actually within the World of Nightwick.

• Kukoshi is a small island off the coast of the main island of Noppin - the fakey cakes Japan of the World of Nightwick. It's position (and map) is analogous to the real world island of Shikoku.
• The bulk of the island is dominated by the Forest of Graves. Once the island was the burial site for the emperor and his court, as well as nobles who could use money or influence to get the same privilege.  Now there are so many graves and tombs about the island that one can easily stumble upon a  site that has gone unseen for generations while gathering firewood or picking mushrooms.
• The forest also is teeming with the spirits of the dead who call to mortals to join them.
• The places of the dead were originally set up and tended by the Genbu clan, whose minds were poisoned by some demon or other - as is often the case in the World of Nightwick.  They built a sprawling fortress called Kumonoso Castle.
• At some point they gained so much favor with the emperor that they attempted to seize him, bring him to Kumonoso Castle, and act as permanent regents.  This obviously angered the other powerful clans at the time.
• The clans from the mainland besieged and destroyed Kumonoso Castle.  During the siege they found it a place of madness and great evils, and many of the creations of the Genbu Clan still haunt the ruins - and the entire island - to this day.
• Today the dominant clan on the island is the Tsuru clan, who rule from Sato, which was once a village near the shadow of Kumonoso.  Now it's a sizable town capable of having city adventures.
• Two other clans inhabit the island. The Okami clan is made of a cadet branch of the Genbu that helped the old clans destroy them in the long long ago.  They are still rumored to use foul magics and are particularly known for making their adversaries contract a form of madness that makes them act like dogs. They are secretive, but not openly hostile to the Tsuru clan.
• The other main clan is the Byakko clan, which has been given control over the western part of Noppin because its leader jingles little baubles in a way that the emperor particularly likes.  They have seized a castle from the Tsuru clan - Orizuru Castle - and obviously intend to wage further war against them.  It is likely that their ultimate goal is to take Sato itself.
• Religion on Kukoshi, and in Noppin in general, is divided between the monks of Law and the yamabushi who deal with the traditional Old Gods of the islands. While the priests of the two religions may fight, most of the realm embraces some level of syncretism between the two beliefs.
• The religion of the Law in Noppin is an esoteric Eastern branch that does not necessarily oppose appeasing the Old Gods but focuses on conditioning one's mind and body to become one with the Law upon death. To do this monks often do things such as squeeze their bodies into metal cubes to cause their bones to "align" with the right angles of the Law.
• They do not conceive of the Law as a deity but as a kind of divine state outside the universe. They do believe that the Law has saints, which function much as they do in the Western and Zenopolitan churches.
• The overall structure of such a game would be like the one I used in Yavana, with most of the adventuring being hexcrawling with some mid-sized dungeons and the occasional town antics. Kumonoso Castle would be a fairly large dungeon but not "mega" in the campaign oriented sense.
• I plan on borrowing Anthony's warrior societies for fighters, but also include ones for thieves (shinobi schools).  It's likely that I'll pre-place NPCs who are teachers for these societies, and one or two of them might even be tengu.
• Other dungeon ideas include the Moon Tower of the Tengu, the tombs of the old emperors, a more recently cursed castle, and a waterfall/cave holding the demonic princess of the Genbu clan.
• Monsters will be largely taken from yokai.com because that site is great.
• I would likely run this using Old School Essentials with houserules for Yamabushi and Namazu.
• Obvious influences include the first two Onimusha games, Sekiro, Throne of Blood, the manga of Inuyasha (which has a lot more horror elements than the anime), Kwaidan, the first Yokai Wars movie... a bunch of other stuff probably.