Musings on Haki Shinpi
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2016 1:36 am
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.
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.
AD&D has a history of mashing European myths and legends together too.