Black Tokyo: Fetish and Folklore

Species	Appeared in Races of….	Size and Type	What Are They, Really?
Akaname	The Tatakama	Medium Undead	Pathetic, shit-eating undead
Bloodstrong Men	The Tatakama	Large Humanoid	Incestuous tribal warriors
Daughters of Kirin	The Tatakama	Medium Monstrous Humanoid	The superstrong daughters of an equine god
Dodoma	The Tatakama	Medium Humanoid	Many-eyed thieves
Doujinishi	Black Japan	Medium Outsider (native)	Oversexed refugee from a fantasy
Futakuchi	The Tatakama	Medium Outsider (good, native)	Severe, two-mouthed celestial harbingers
Goryohime	Black Japan	Medium Undead	Cute undead schoolgirls
Ironclub Oni	The Tatakama	Large Outsider (native)	Brutally strong but dull-witted giants
Kami	The Tatakama	Medium Outsider (native)	Helpful and skillful minor deities
Kijimuna	The Tatakama	Medium Plant	Innocent and playful plant creatures
Kitsune	The Tatakama	Medium Fey (shapechanger)	Mischievous, shapeshifting fox spirits
Koropokkuru	The Tatakama	Medium Humanoid or Animal	Dour, dwarflike folk that are more animal than human
Nekomusume	Black Japan	Medium Humanoid	An enslaved species of half-woman felines
Nikusui	Black Japan	Small Fey	Child-shaped and lethal protector of children
POETICA	Black Japan	Medium Monstrous Humanoid	Ultra-creative and loving companion robots
Tanuki	The Tatakama	Medium Humanoid (shapechanger)	Shifty, shapeshifting raccoon spirits with enormous magical testicles
Ubume	The Tatakama	Medium Undead	Mournful ghost of a woman who died while pregnant
Yurei	Black Japan	Medium Monstrous Humanoid	Endlessly enraged, ghostwalking killers

            Black Tokyo Unlimited: Races of Black Japan just hit at RPGnow, and I’m well into both a magic item sourcebook and a comprehensive atlas and revised monster manual for the Black Tokyo setting. I put together this chart last night to keep the 18 major races of the setting straight in my own head, and I figured I’d talk a little about how I chose these various races for Black Tokyo.

            As you can see by the character choices available to the players, Black Tokyo is anything but a standard fantasy setting. While nothing’s stopping you from playing an Elf or Dwarf, there’s very little mechanical support for it. Instead all the races are either drawn from traditional Japanese folklore, or else embody either a particular fetish or J-horror trope. Mechanically, I’ve done some different things with Black Tokyo than most other Pathfinder designers- for example, looking over that list you’ll find lots of Outsiders and three Undead player races to choose from. I’ve always wished that 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons (and later the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game) had included some kind of undead species as a core race, because allowing players to be undead opens up some great possibilities, both mechanically, and in terms of story.

            Anyway, most of the player races on the list are purely mythological, and the mythic races actually tend to be weirder than the stuff I come up with myself. Actually, that’s been true throughout the Black Tokyo writing process. One of the motifs I hope readers take notice of (especially in my upcoming atlas and magic items books) is that traditional Shinto folklore and Japanese ghost stories have the same imaginative, gory, ero-horror edge that the best modern hentai stuff has. I want to show an unbroken cultural continuity linking the old myths and stuff like Legend of the Overfiend.

That’s not to say I kept any of the critters in Black Tokyo culturally ‘pure’- rather I sorta view Black Tokyo as the “Ultimate Marvel” version of the old myths- keeping what works, molding the core concept into something taking place in the modern world and revamping whatever I feel is too silly or nonsensical. Rite Publication’s Kaidan setting, which I love and reference often, is doing much the same thing with Japanese monsters that I am, but hewing a little closer to the traditional versions than I am.

Next up are races that either embody a particular fetish or horror trope. These include the Goryohime, the Bloodstrong Men, the Akaname, and the Yurei, among a few others. Some of have clear analogues in J-horror- the Yurei are basically a player character version of Samara from the Ring, as I mentioned in a preview post a few months back. The rest embody a particular and popular extreme Internet fetish, and by their selection should tell the Game Master that the particular player wants to explore that specific fetish with their character (or the player just likes the mechanics behind a particular race, for power gamers).

 

Basically it works out that

Akaname = scat

Bloodstrong Men = incest porn

Goryohime = snuff sex & erotic asphyxia

Koropokkuru = bestiality (but are also a traditional folkloric race; the Daughters of Kirin could also be included in this fetish category)

Nekemusume and POETICA = sex slaves/harems (and the POETICA are a riff on cute androids like Chi from Chobits)

Nikusi = lolicon, but with a dark edge

Sooner or later, I’ll include a vore/cannibalism focused ‘hero’ race, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet, and so far I’ve limited vore and gynophagia elements to the villains of the setting.

            So is Black Tokyo is all about various fucked up fetishes intruding on a fairly standard Oriental Adventures type setting? Yes and no. Originally Black Tokyo was just something I put together over the course of a few months; it was only after the first edition started selling that I decided to revisit the setting, and I only began really building the world in Black Tokyo II: Chastity & Depravity.

Now, it’s become my biggest selling and most perverse setting. I don’t really have an editor, and there’s no one telling me what I can and can’t write, but I write differently for my different game lines. Galaxy Command and most of my generic Pathfinder Roleplaying Game stuff is fairly all-ages; Psi-Watch focuses on militaristic violence and implied sex. It’s like the old Image Comics that inspired it, R-rated but not necessarily mature. Otherverse America is my serious setting, my mature readers line, not really so much for explicit sex, but because the setting’s central themes are so heavy: abortion, prejudice, terrorism, religious hatred, ect.

Black Tokyo though- that fucking setting is where the wheels fall off the car. I actually force myself, a lot of times, to keep writing until I go past my comfort zones and actually squick myself out. And than I write a little more, try and make things just a little bit more fucked up. I’ve seen a lot of Internet criticism of the setting (which is a major reason I avoid 1d4Chan and Something Awful’s gaming forums) and a lot of the posts actually question my sanity (or casts me as some kind of drooling misogynist, which is kinda ironic, actually). Am I actually into all this weird shit? Not really; my subconscious is a pretty messy place, but not quite that dark. It’s a fun setting to play in, and the more research into obscure myths I do, and the more mythic elements I include, the more I like it. While revamping Black Tokyo I’ve been reading everything from badly fan-translated hentai to doctoral thesis on Japanese folklore. The combination of deep scholarship and fucked up fetish is a fun one to create, and should keep readers on their toes.

Anyway, that combination of folklore and fetish is on full display in the magic item book. Right now, I’ve got 150 magic items (WAY up from the 38 items in the original Black Tokyo), and already have art for a good number of them. At this point, I’m unsure if I will add additional items to the book, as 150 is a great round number for a sourcebook, or save any additional items for later splat-books. I previewed five of my favorite items a few posts ago, so take a look at the item roster.

CHRIS

Magic Armor

1.      Amaterasu’s Ribbon

2.      Bishamon’s Do

3.      Blessed Rice Coat

4.      Casual Steel

5.      Carp Scale Shirt

6.      Cold Winds Skirt

7. Demon Hunter II Tactical Body Armor

8.      Enenra Rubber

9.      Glisten Shirt

10. Idol’s Skirt

11.  Otome’s Slip

12.  Masochistic Swimsuit

13.  Police Lady Uniform

14.  Police Section Seven Duty Uniform

15.  Salarimn’s Suit

16.  Silk Coil Harness

17.  Sleepy Dress

18.  Tanso Middle School Dress

19.  Yakuza’s Suit

 

Magic Weapons

1.      Beauty Knives

2.      Collapsing Reed Cane

3.      Daikoku’s Blade

4.      Ebisu’s Harpoon

5.      Eyrines 5.7mm  SMG

6.      Exorcist’s .50 Caliber

7.      Flying Nagatana

8.      Gashapon Armada Bag 

9. Girl Hunting Tonfa

10.  Guro Blade

11. Guro Scalpel
12. Hell Annihilating Sniper Rifle
13. Hellclub

14.  Hero’s Mallet

15. Heroic Tanto
16. Jurojin’s Staff

17.  Kaishaku’s Katana

18.  Monster Brand

19.  Police Section Seven Tonfa

20.  Splattercore Shotgun

21.  Queen Satan Knuckles

22. TBMS Catcher’s Tonfa

23.  Yakuza’s Pistol

24.  Viper Tongue Mempo

25.  Yurei’s Cutter

Wondrous Items

(Cn) indicates Consumable Items

1. Adoration Smoke (Cn)
2. Ainu Kut
3. Aizen Myo Ona-Hole
4. Akaname’s Sticker
5. Animal Tail Plug
6. Athlete’s Egg
7. Baku Call Charmlets
8. Baku Pillow
9. Benten’s Headphones
10. Benten’s Stud
11. Binzuru Idol
12. Blushing Dildo
13. Cat-Girl’s Leash
14. Cat-Girl’s Neko
15. Centipede Bracelet
16. Chrysanthemum Seven Official Panties
17. Coinless Card
18. Convenient Yatai
19. Cosmic Tights
20. Cosplayer’s Bangle
21. Cum Vial (Cn)
22. Cute Purse
23. Daikoku’s Ring of Fortune
24. Daruma Doll (Cn)
25. Devotional Scroll (Cn)
26. Dosojin’s Phallus
27. Ecchi Charm
28. Enlightenment Face
29. Fisherman’s Stone
30. Fugen Cellphone
31. Fox’ Cape
32. Ghost Sight Goggles
33. Goetic Dildo
34. Goryohime’s Tiara
35. Gyaru Eyelashes (Cn)
36. Haramaki
37. Harigata
38. Healing Matcha (Cn)
39. H-book, the
40. Hospital Mask (Cn)
41. Hotei Fan
42. Junishi Bangles
43. Kami Pleasing Candy (Cn)
44. Kirin’s Shoe
45. Koropokkuru’s Whistle
46. Linemaker’s Polymer (Cn)
47. Lolita’s Lingerie
48. Maiden’s Bells
49. Manba Wool
50. Medicine Gloves
51. Misogynist’s Tie
52. Motherblood Bandings
53. Mongaku’s Robe
54. Namazue’s Coffin
55. Necromancer’s Phallus
56. New Day Panties (Cn)
57. Noh Mask, Geisha
58. Noh Mask, Ghost
59. Noh Mask, Kitsune
60. Noh Mask, Oni
61. Noh Mask, Samurai
62. Nudist’s Camera
63. Oni-Bane Memento
64. Oni-bane Ribbons
65. Otaku’s Ona-Hole
66. Otoku-San Doll
67. Perfection Change Soap (Cn)
68. Pervert’s Guidebook
69. Petit Mansion
70. Project: Cute Pet
71. Psychological Noose
72. Safe Wipe (Cn)
73. Salariman’s Tie
74. Salariman’s Watch
75. Shit Ofuda (Cn)
76. Slit Mouth Mask
77. Spearman’s Ring
78. Spellcaster’s Egg
79. Tantros ™ Pill (Cn)
80. Tatami of Peace
81. Temple Bell
82. Theological Egg
83. Torque of Moans
84. Train Ofuda (Cn)
85. Transmutational Gyno-Bed
86. Ukemochi’s Salt (Cn)
87. Ususama’s Tampon (Cn)
88. Yakushi’s Bowl
89. Yakuza’s Key (Cn)
90. Yoshiwara Linens

Minor Artifacts

1. Afterlife Armor
2. Deep Pulse Armor
3. Hell Coral Armor
4. Herskin
5. Kim-Un Skull Repository
6. Skin of Pain
7. Theotokotic Phallus
8. True Lotus Bud (Cn)
9. Wonderful Play

Major Artifacts

1. Ae-Oina’s Spear
2. Izanagi’s Spear
3. Kata Yagami, the Imperial Mirror of Japan
4. Kusanagi, the Imperial Katana of Japan 
5. The Magatama, the Imperial Jewels of Japan