Musings on Haki Shinpi

[Deewun]

As my campaign kicks into its beginnings, I've been taking in the wants of the players and just started to plan things out for a bit, finding adventures and plots that match. I know that I have a lot of anime fans in the group, so a trip to Rokushima Taiyoo just makes sense. That got me thinking about Haki. And I just kept thinking and thinking and planning. I shared the whole thing with my wife, who loved it, and said I should share with all of you. So here we go.

First and foremost, I love the additional homebrew material added in the Mistipedia. I've been working to create my own little thoughts on religion and such, and all of that Mistipedia stuff really helped guide me. But in particular, I wanted to really use his possession ability of "gaijin" - Japanese for foreigner that I'll go ahead and keep using.

Ok, so we got a geist, who can only possess people who are new to his domain. Immediately, the question is how he finds these gaijin, but I'll get back in a minute. Let's just assume that Haki has possessed folks before. What does he want, now that he has a body? He is aware of his curse, that his sons have to make peace, so what does he plan to do? Does he plan at all? How long has he been doing this? The mistipedia homebrew suggests that Haki's new abilities manifested after the Grand Conjunction, which at least in my campaign is going to be 29 or 30 years of these new abilities. What has he been doing?

Immediately, it is much more interesting to have him be a planner. He doesn't have anything else to do. Let's assume that he has only completely figured out his possession ability within the past 10 years. It requires him to find a gaijin, which isn't a guarantee, and to have that gaijin fail their saving throw. So he has 10 years to learn the ins and outs of this new ability.

He is also obsessed with his heirs. So, like any man in need of heirs who hasn't gotten his rocks off, as he is a geist, once he gets a body, he heads to a brothel. I think. For my personal taste, I think he is a man who would return to the same brothel every chance he got. It is his favorite, and what Haki thinks is the best is what he KNOWS is best. He's a creature of habit, potentially, and even more so, stubborn. But now we have gaijin having sex with, and potentially fathering children, with these women. What happens? My fix here is that Haki's curse will not allow him to birth new heirs, even in his possessed bodies, leading to stillborn children. Geist children. That he can now control. Not "you do exactly what I want" but in a "I am your father, you will do what I say" way. Filling our Japanese ghost-story domain with some The Grudge and The Ring geists for Haki to use, and even better, to gather information for him. After 10 years, he now has a pretty good network of geist children throughout Rokushima Taiyoo, providing him information whenever a gaijin finds their way there.

Now that he has information, we have a new problem. The possession ends after 30 days, if not earlier. Mechanically I believe in every edition, domination and possession affects do not grant amnesia, so these gaijin are aware, at least partially of what is happening. How does Haki deal with this new problem. The easy answer is drown them in the ocean, and that worked for a good long while. But Haki started making plans which dictated something else. I'll get to that in a minute.

Haki has another problem now. How can he make lasting progress if he is controlling, at best, one person for a month every month for a year. He has a very limited control over what gaijin may show up, or even if they do. Hell, it is entirely possible that gaijin don't even show up monthly. He needs a way to interact with the material world. So he devised a scheme. At some point, a particularly rich gaijin gave Haki a lot of money to spend. And instead of blowing it all on women in the brothels, he set about having a finely crafted suit of magical jade armor created. He then stashed it away in a hidey-hole somewhere on one of the islands. Now, he has a new game plan:
1) Try to birth an heir, even if he knows it is futile
2) Put on the jade armor

He's now created a consistent entity in the domain, the Jade Ronin. In this full armor, covering his face, he can be the Jade Ronin no matter what race of the gaijin. He can start making connections, start influencing politics, start hiring assassins. Rumors of the Jade Ronin, a remorseless killer and thief who shows up without a warning now circulate Rokushima Taiyoo. Haki likes the fear. And is infuriated that his sons believe it to be only a rumor, as he has yet been able to control a gaijin long enough to force his will. He cannot get his gaijin killed, or his armor will be lost. And he cannot allow the gaijin to take back control while he is in the jade armor. I am sure once or twice this has had to have happened, almost ruining all that Haki was working towards, but through luck and planning, he has kept the damage to a minimum. I imagine the first gaijin, taking back over his body with the armor, tried to take advantage of the Jade Ronin, setting Haki back months, maybe a year of work, until Haki found another gaijin to slaughter the imposter with. The gaijin are weapons, armor, tools. But they are too dangerous to keep around. And the growing need to fund secrets and specialists rises. So what does he do?

He gambles. Getting more and more money needed to create his network of rogues, ronin, and ninja. One of the islands has many gambling houses, and even better for Haki, debtor's prisons. And with his network of Geist children, he has a much more accurate assessment of time that the gaijin has been in the domain, so he can plan much more accurately. His new plan of attack:
1) Try to birth an hair
2) Become the Jade Ronin
3) Deal with his contacts to try assassinations, political scheming or the like
4) Return the jade armor to his hidey-hole, retrieve some of the treasure stolen from all the gaijin he has been possessing
5) Gamble it away, taking his winnings to his hidey-hole until he knows the time limit is close to up
6) Run up debt until he is kicked from the body of the gaijin, leaving the poor gaijin useless and in debt, thrown in prison

Haki Shinpi, formerly powerless, has found a way to create the power he needs, 30 days (ish) at a time. He has a fortune at his disposal, a small army of geist children and a hireling army of ronin and ninjas who are paid by the Jade Ronin. He has time on his side. Or he did ...

His sons are now also 30 years older. They have sons, heirs of their own. And Haki needs to act soon. He does now know how his curse will affect his living grandchildren. And as many times as he has come close to getting peace, maybe a ten day treaty, maybe even a 29 day "so-close-it-hurts" treaty, he has yet to succeed. He must act swiftly.

And my PCs have just been spotted upon exiting the mists by his geist children. The time to act ... is now!

So yeah. Lots of thoughts. And something that really builds a cool obstacle out of an almost joke in Haki Shinpi.

[brilliantlight]

Thanks , since it was my idea originally . The Mistpedia's entry is much improved over the original as it is considerably more "Eastern" than the original. Being an American of Geman descent I think in Western terms and I was new to the board. I thought Shinpi was far too weak as is. A geist? What kind of threat is ? He also had no real background. I gave him a background, which I must say is considerably improved in Mistpedia, and his powers.

[Deewun]

Thanks for your write up then! As you can see, I used a lot of it as inspiration to trying to figure out how to make Haki a real villain. I hope that our combined efforts can be really useful for others!

[brilliantlight]

I am running a game that is based on playtesting obscure , changed or homebrewed domains if you are interested. http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... f=7&t=9848 we could try yours.

[Kasumi Rou]

A couple of ideas for using Gaijin 外人,
Europeans historically you had the Jesuit priests and traders. Converted a good portion of Kyushu island before Christianity was outlawed. There was small trading port off of Nagasaki called Dejima, there also was small scale trading w/ Russians sometimes up in Ezo (Hokkaido) I believe. Gaijin also includes Chinese and Korean as well. So any neighboring countries w/ trade delegations, cultural or historical ties etc!

[Deewun]

A couple of ideas for using Gaijin 外人,
Europeans historically you had the Jesuit priests and traders. Converted a good portion of Kyushu island before Christianity was outlawed. There was small trading port off of Nagasaki called Dejima, there also was small scale trading w/ Russians sometimes up in Ezo (Hokkaido) I believe. Gaijin also includes Chinese and Korean as well. So any neighboring countries w/ trade delegations, cultural or historical ties etc!

Fun, thank you Kasumi!

[Kasumi Rou]

@ Deewun, no prob! Live over here in Japan teaching English lol. Kasumi Rou (霞狼) Lit translation is Mist Wolf

[Kasumi Rou]

To be honest Rokushima Tayo is my least favorite area for Ravenloft! The problem I have is its 90% BS from the write ups I've seen! Not enough research into Asian culture per say! More people that are into anime etc! Don't get me wrong! I'm into anime as well, but I actually live here and can tell you what is real and what is BS! Not to mention that I have a strong inttest in martial arts ( sword based) as well !!!

[Zettaijin]

I just watched a fabulously weird movie by Seijun Suzuki entitled Kagera-zo which inspired me quite a bit. I'll probably post my thoughts in the random hooks thread.

This said, as I stated before, I was probably the first to try and do something with Rokushima Taiyoo back in the days (late 90's RL mailing list). It wasn't pretty but many of the ideas were re-appropriated in some form or another by others, not that I mind or anything as it was really rough and (as Kasumi Rou) pointed out, mostly influenced by anime.

A lot of stuff could be re-used with the sons of Shinpi representing a specific era in Japanese history and the worst of those who ruled at the time (aristocracy in the Heian era, warriors during the Kamakura era, the merchant class of Edo Japan, and the political Buddhism of Nara era). Each island thus has its own flavour.

Also, Japan's landscape isn't just mountains and rice fields (although both are found in abundance). Sand dunes anyone (Tottori and Shizuoka)? Frozen wastelands (Hokkaido, Aomori)? Near tropical weather (Okinawa)? Which island grows food? Japan owes a lot of its agriculture to the vast fields up north, what about RT? Is Shinpi's domain facing a similar situation as the core with a belligerent domain acting as the breadbasket?

This said, Haki is problematic in other ways. How does he transport himself from island to island? And how can he influence the power structures of the islands if he can't easily cross over and they all have independent political institutions and entities? Perhaps Shinpi's greatest problem is the division of power between four antagonistic individuals across four islands. While he may try to infiltrate one island and influence one son, he is at the same time forgetting about the three others.

What is Shinpi's endgame? A return to a united empire with a single ruler who encompasses the virtues he promoted in his writings. I do not believe Shinpi himself should be interested in being the ruler so much as fostering the proper environment for his idealized one. To this end, he betrays the very code he helped write yet is also unfairly punished as few ever fully adhered to these teachings.

Perhaps in keeping with certain pragmatic views historically popular in eastern Asia regarding virtue and face, one could say that virtue is only important when seen. Invisible virtue is worthless.

Now then, as for Shinpi fathering more sons, understand that blood relations were extremely important (and still are today) in Japan. Shinpi's sons would not truly be his, however it could be interesting that the DP punish him for going against his own views on matters of family and bloodlines.

[Kasumi Rou]

To add onto what Zettaijin is saying, Japan has a rich history of various monsters etc,
(Which could also include other Asian countries monsters as well)
Just a few examples

Tengu ( 2-3variations)
Kitsune (lit fox) but also includes the were fox variation
There is a bunch variations on this.
Yurei/ obakemono basically ghost
100 demon night parade
Tanuki (Racoons and trickster character)
Yuki Onna (snow queen type legend etc)
Kubinashi (lit w/ out a neck)
Miminashi Hoichi ( Earless Hoichi) from Kawaidan)
(Various versions of this as well)
Nurarihyon
Kirin
Oni ( lit demons/ ogres)
100 + years old items own spirit
Blades w/ blood lust character i.e. masamune blades
Taira Masakado ( kinda bogeyman almost lead a revolt and his grave site is cursed etc)
Kappa
Namahage (kinda like Krumpust sp?)
etc (all areas of Japan have their own local legends/ monsters!

[Zettaijin]

Some of these monsters appeared before in some form or another in AD&D products. The ogre mage was at least partly inspired by Japanese ogre demons (oni) and the snow woman made an appearance in the Ravenloft MC 2 under the name Jezra Wagner (who also got her own little story in one anthology novel) - a reskinned/modified spectre.

AD&D had a history of mashing Non-European myths together (see FR's "oriental hot pot" Kara-Tur) in a way similar to a young Zettaijin putting vampires, mummies, gnolls and whatever other monsters I thought were cool in some randomly designed dungeon, all forever waiting in their respective rooms to be slaughtered by adventurers... Urr... yeah...

In any case, given that RT isn't REALLY Japan much like Barovia isn't REALLY Transylvania, there's nothing that says that monsters and myths need to obey historical precedents over here. Why couldn't some odd South Asian creature make its way over?

The Buddhist Hells are also a lot of fun and I suggest Jigoku for a cinematic journey to the various Hells and the suffering that awaits there. I visited a museum devoted to animatronic oni torturing people in the Buddhist Hells over in Kurume, Fukuoka. Great stuff!

Japaese ghosts of course are not just spirits of the dead, but also, as in the infamous Lady of the 6th avenue in the Genji Monogatari, a living person's spirit which was purposefully detached from the body to enact revenge.

In fact, Prince Genji could be an interesting darklord candidate - depending on how one's views, of course.

[ewancummins]

AD&D has a history of mashing European myths and legends together too.
Also robots and dinosaurs.

I agree with Zettaijin. This isn't a painstakingly detailed historical Earth game setting.

[Zettaijin]

AD&D has a history of mashing European myths and legends together too.
Also robots and dinosaurs.

I agree with Zettaijin. This isn't a painstakingly detailed historical Earth game setting.

Robot and dinosaurs? Blasphemy!

This said, in my younger, wilder days I had a few dinosaurs protecting a vampire in one dungeon.

I know, pretty dumb huh?

Years later I look down on my naive younger self for not having the vision to make the vampire ride a t-rex into battle.

[Kasumi Rou]

It's not so much a faithful historical accurate representation of Japan, Germany, Balkans, Russia etc.
it's more of does it have that flavor of culture is what we are trying to get across! Mixing and matching monsters etc is fine. But when your running an oriental based campaign it should feel like it. Throwing in 1 or 2 token monsters from a anime movie/ series isn't best way. The more research you do the more realistic you can make the atmosphere feel!

[ewancummins]

It's not so much a faithful historical accurate representation of Japan, Germany, Balkans, Russia etc.
it's more of does it have that flavor of culture is what we are trying to get across! Mixing and matching monsters etc is fine. But when your running an oriental based campaign it should feel like it. Throwing in 1 or 2 token monsters from a anime movie/ series isn't best way. The more research you do the more realistic you can make the atmosphere feel!

Agreed.

What do you think of Oriental Adventures (AD&D or the 3E version)?