Okay, some Black Tokyo Unlimited news..... I recently finished up Black Tokyo Unlimited: Races of Black Japan, which focuses on six races common on 'our' side of the dimensional border separating Earth from the Tatakama. Some of them are races that originally appeared in Black Tokyo II, revised and updated for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game; two of them- the Goryohime, which are getting previewed here today, and the Yurei, are all new. BTU: Races of Black Japan will feature all new, kickass Amanda Webb artwork. Right now, it makes better financial sense to release several mid-length PDFs under the BTU banner, with plans to eventually collect the content into a single HUGE revised campaign guide. Last night, (while waiting for the last artwork for Action Galaxy)I started revising all the magic items from the original Black Tokyo for their BTU debut, and I'm adding several new items. A few of the items need major revision- particularly the Animal Play Tails and Equine Corset- all the furry/pony play stuff is going to need a major revision. Not for content, of course, but because they need to be brought more fully in line with how Pathfinder handles shapechanging and the Beast Shape spell chain.
That said, take a look at the Goryohime race, which will be major players in the revised setting.
Enjoy,
CHRIS
The Goryohime
Medium Undead
Goryohime
are a race of glamorous, bright undead culled from the ranks of Black Japan’s
most beautiful young girls. Choosing a special form of ritualized suicide while
still in their teens, these schoolgirl undead ensure their bodies will never
change, their breasts will never sag, their skin will never wrinkle, their hair
will never thin nor grey. After their suicide is complete, some continue in a
kind of half life, retaining ties to their mortal existence.
Goryohime might still attend the
same high school or preparatory academy they did in life, cling to the same
clique of friends (some of which might eventually follow her into undeath),
shop at the same hip stores. The only clue to their true nature is the coolness
of their unblemished marble skin, or the distinctive, instantly recognizable
raspy voice of a living ghost created through ritual strangulation. Others find
their new existence as undead makes their world stranger than they could have
imagined while they still breathed- they might attend classes as the
prestigious Hanging
Academy, learning the
twin arts of necromancy and seduction. Others might become demon hunters and
exorcists, hunting the oni and human
predators that prey on Japanese high school girls.
Appearance
At first
glance, a Goryohime could easily pass for the school girl she was in life. On
closer inspection, her undead nature becomes apparent. A Guryohime does not
breathe, and her heart does not beat; her milky white skin is cool and smooth.
The Guryohime bears the marks of her suicide; her throat is black and purple
with bruises and abraded with rope burns. Their tongues are long and black, and
their voices have an instantly recognizable raspy sultriness.
Goryohime
dress in the same styles they enjoyed in life, with many adopting seductively
modified school uniforms as a personal statement. The race as a whole is vain,
fashionable and almost stereotypically girlish. Akaname who know them claim
that the race smells faintly of the urine and shit they spilled in their last
dying moments, a scent they find delightful. Ordinary mortals lack noses keen
enough to detect this ghostly perfume.
Reproduction
Guryohime
are an undead strain of humanity, which cannot reproduce, and only continues by
new girls choosing the Guryohime path. The vast majority (as high as 80-90%) of
all successful Guryohime are of Japanese descent, though occasionally a girl
from China,
Korea
or even distant America
or Europe might hear the dream-call of the
Great Tree. Future Guryohime have erotic nightmares of hanging noosed from one
of the branches of a great tree of light. These nightmares begin shortly after
the girl reaches puberty. Most girls fight the Great Tree’s compulsion on their
own, or drown their dreams with anti-psychotic meds, but every year dozens of
girls give in to the noose-dreams. If a girl reaches her twenties without
giving into the noose-dreams, they fade entirely.
A girl who
chooses to become a Guryohime instinctively knows the steps necessary to
complete her rebirth into undeath- the white kimono, the brown obi, the
strangling noose woven with purple thread, the prayer, the song, the final
kicking away of the stool….
Relatively
few would-be-Guryohime have the strength of will necessary to return as an
undead girl. Most are simply lost to the afterlife and the great wheel of
reincarnation. Guryohime don’t grieve for their failed sisters- they celebrate
their lives, eroticize their deaths, and comfort with the fact they are
promised to rebirth somewhere in the Tatakama as temple miko
of the Great Tree.
Homes and Lands
Guryohime
are creatures of Black Japan’s cities, and attend school as strange,
half-living students. Many still reside in their parent’s homes, or have small
apartments near to their still living friends and relatives. An extremely high
percentage of Guryohime make their homes near Aokigahara Forest, at the base of Mt. Fuji,
as many of the undead girls ended their mortal lives in the eerily still “Sea of Trees”.
Racial Traits
Size and Type
Goryohime are Medium sized undead.
As Medium creatures they suffer no special bonuses or penalties due to their
size. A Guryohime’s base landspeed is 30 ft.
Ability Score Modifiers
+2 CHA.
As undead, Goryohime lack a CON score. Guryohime are physically
attractive, cultivating their youthful beauty and choosing asphyxiating undeath
to preserve this beauty forever.
Enhanced Senses
Goryohime possess lowlight vision.
Eased Passage Between Life and
Death (SU)
Goryohime have died once, and orgasmed messily as
they perished. They have no fear of dying again. Goryohime never lose a level
for being raised from the dead or resurrected. They always return to existence
as a Goryohime, however. Reincarnation has no effect on a Guyrohime.
If the Guyrohime casts raise dead or resurrection
(or similar magic) to benefit another creature, that creature returns to life
without suffering level loss or CON loss.
Noose Dreams (SU)
The noose-dreams which called the Goryohime into
undeath give the girl a phenomenal insight into the nature of magic and the
structure of the three realms: Earth, the Tatakama and the Black Else.
Goryohime receive a +1 racial bonus on Knowledge (arcana) and Spellcraft
checks. They receive a +4 racial bonus on Spellcraft checks made specifically
to identify magic items from the Necromancy school.
Undead Immunities (EX)
Goryohime
have all the immunities common to Undead player characters.
Undead Player Characters
Undead player characters have all
the traits common to Undead (described fully in The Bestiary), with one notable
exception. As thinking beings, with true souls, Undead player characters remain
vulnerable to mind-influencing effects. An Undead player character’s Hit Die,
base attack bonus and base saves are determined by its character class.
Becoming a
Goryohime In Game
Unlike
other forms of undead, like the Akaname and the Ubume who begin their ‘life’ as
an undead creature, Goryohime live several years as a teenaged girl before
accepting undeath. Over the course of a campaign, a female character with a CHA
score of at least 11+ who is in the Young Adult age category might be blessed
(or cursed) with noose-dreams of the Great Tree. Either the gamemaster or the
player might decide that a specific character who meets those criteria begins
experiencing the dreams, but the actual choice to become a Goryohime is always
in the player’s hands.
Unlike NPC
Goryohime, who risk being lost to death forever, assume a player character
Goryohime succeeds in the suicide-ritual and rises an hour or so after her
death as an undead, still writing in her noose. The character loses all
existing racial traits and race specific feats and talents, and gains the
Goryohime’s racial traits. The character may select an equal number of
Goryohime-specific talents and feats. She does not lose her old racial ability
score modifiers, merely receiving a +2 racial increase to her CHA score.
Goryohime
Alternate Racial Traits
Chaste Goryohime (SU)
The Goryohime followed a
different path into undeath, and preformed a far crueler suicide ritual on
herself. She followed the path of the Chinese Chaste warrior sisterhood. In her
death ritual, she ritually severed her clitoris and sewed her labia shut with
golden wire, before opening the veins in her thighs. Her undead flesh is as
white and hard as porcelain, and her corpse still bears the signs of its
mutilation.
The Chaste
Goryohime’s self mutilation hardens her will, and makes an apprentice member of
the eternal, demon-slaying Chaste sisterhood. The Chaste Goryohime receives
Combat Martial Arts as a racial bonus feat. The Chaste Guryohime receives a +1
racial bonus on saving throws against spells, spell-like abilities and other
effects which specifically target the female gender.
The Chaste
Guryohime does not receive the Guryohime’s +2 racial bonus to CHA. This trait
replaces the Guryohime’s Noose Dreams racial trait.
Dead Daughter of the Tatakama (SU)
The Goryohime was born and lived
as a mortal girl somewhere in the endless twilight of the Tatakama. She crossed
to Black Japan to begin a new existence in a world as strange and exciting as
her own undead state. The Goryohime can sense the direction to and approximate
distance to any Torrii Gate between
realms, and receives a +2 racial bonus on Knowledge checks made to figure out
how to open a sealed Torrii.
Dead
Daughter of the Tatakama replaces the Guryohime’s Eased Passage racial trait.
Glamorous Spirit (SP)
The
Goryohime is a seductive and beguiling death-spirit. Once per day, the
Goryohime can cast Charm Person as a
sorcerer of her total character level. If the Goryohime engages in an hour long
ritual which culminates in a second hanging, replicating her transformation to
undead, for 24 hours she may choose to cast Charm
Monster instead. This ritual must be witness by at least one living or
Akaname character.
Glamorous
Spirit replaces the Goryohime’s Eased Passage racial trait.
Peristaltic Magic (SU)
The
Goryohime will never forget the sensation of bladder and bowels empting in
mortal death, and she uses these memories to fuel her sorcery. A Goryohime
Modern Spellcaster receives a +4 racial bonus on WILL Saves made to safely
overcast any spell with the Skatto
descriptor (many of which are described in Spells and Gods of the Tatakama,
Otherverse Games, 2012).
Even if she dies while overcasting
a spell with the Skatto magic
descriptor, she successfully casts the Skatto
spell as if she possessed the Suicide Spellcaster feat.
Peristaltic
Magic replaces the Goryohime’s Noose Dreams racial trait.
