Emotion List

Manifestations Of Emotions, Most Belonging To And Sustained By The Veritas.

Suffering



The very essence of the emotion suffering itself that works along with Pain. So long as suffering exists within its foe, it can regenerate from nothingness. It can also revive its partner Pain. It can lock you within the depths of your deepest, most horrible memories that Pain may send you into and it can drain you of your willpower and other energies with its two eyed hands. It feeds off of your energies and your suffering.

Onryō
怨霊
おんりょう

Translation: grudge spirit, vengeful ghost
Habitat: found all throughout Japan
Diet: none; survives solely on its wrath

Appearance: The most dreaded type of yūrei is the onryō. They are the ghosts of people who died with such strong passions—jealousy, rage, or hatred—that their soul is unable to pass on. Instead, they transform into powerful, wrathful spirits who seek vengeance on everything they encounter. Often they were victims of war, catastrophe, betrayal, murder, or suicide—and they display wounds or marks indicative of the way they died.

Interactions: Their motive is always the same—vengeance. Onryō are easily powerful enough to kill anyone. However, they prefer letting the object of their hatred live a long life of torment and suffering, watching loved ones die in their stead. Onryō inflict a terrible curse on the people or places that they haunt. This curse can be transmitted to others like a contagious disease, creating a circle of death and destruction far more devastating than any ordinary ghost. Onryō make no distinction in their targets; they just want to destroy. Moreover, an onryō’s vengeance can never be satisfied. While most yūrei only haunt a person or place until they are exorcised or placated, an onryō’s horrible grudge-curse continues to infect a location long after the ghost itself has been laid to rest.

Occasionally, an onryō’s curse is born not out of hatred and retribution, but from an intense, passionate love that perverts into jealousy. These onryō haunt their former lovers, exacting their wrath on new romances, second marriages, new children, and eventual end up destroying the lives of the ones they loved so much in life. Whatever the origin, an onryō’s undiscriminating wrath makes it one of the most feared supernatural entities in all of Japan.

Legends: Unquestionably the most well-known onryō, and one whose grudge-curse exists to this very day, is the ghost of Oiwa. A young woman who was brutally disfigured and then murdered by her wicked and greedy husband in an elaborate plot, her story is told in Yotsuya kaidan, or The Ghost Story of Yotsuya. Yotsuya kaidan has been retold many times, in books, ukiyoe, kabuki, and film. Like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, legend has it that a curse accompanies her story, and that those who retell it suffer injuries and even death. To this day, producers, actors, and their crews continue to visit the grave of Oiwa in Tōkyō before productions or adaptations of Yotsuya kaidan, praying for her soul and asking for her blessing to tell her story once again.



Spite

Manifestations of pure negative energy, often due to others. They are able to be inflictions upon others, and tend to debilitate either the host or the target of negativity.

Attack
Slice: Slashes with the sickle sword.

Fire: A level 1 spell. A small burst of fire.

Vanish: Uses magic to turn self invisible as well as intangible, making it immune to all physical attacks.

Steal: Jacks your shit and uses Vanish as well as other magics to escape into thin air.


Weakness: None

Immunities: None

Blue Magic Learned: Vanish

Item Dropped: Potion, Echo Screen.


Grudge

A negative entity often that comes in the form of a powerful spirit, though can be any type of manifestation. They tend to be born from the remnant negativity of others, though they can form on their own, especially from a Spite. They often inflict several debilitations upon others, and can even curse their very life to the point of death. They can grow large and powerful enough to be plagues on entire civilizations, and can also easily be embedded in objects or possess them of their own will.

Attacks
Mug: Attacks you violently and jacks any shit it can find, whether it be money or items or whatever.

Vanish: Instantaneously becomes invisible and intangible, making all physical attacks ineffective.

Escape: Gets RIGHT THE FUCK OUTTA THERE, using magic to transmute itself elsewhere.

Magic Hammer: Creates a giant hammer, which it can either wield or have float, and one strike from it can deplete your chakra/magic/soulenergy/etc.etc. completely... Just with a single strike.


Weakness: None

Immunities: Confuse, Berserk, Vanish

Blue Magic Learned: Magic Hammer

Item Dropped: Ether

Buruburu
Buruburu震々
ぶるぶる

Translation: onomatopoeic; the sound of shivering
Alternate names: zozogami
Habitat: human-inhabited areas
Diet: cowardice

Appearance: Buruburu are sometimes referred to as the spirit of cowardice. They follow people and cause them to shudder in fear.

Interactions: Buruburu are born when humans perform acts of cowardice, such as running away from battle. They possess people by clinging to their shirt collars and touching the backs of their necks. This causes their hair to stand on end and sends shivers down their bodies.

Origin: The words buruburu and zo are Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of shivering and the chill of fear. This spirit’s name comes from the sound of the shivers that it causes to run down people’s spines.

Isogashi
いそがし

Translation: busy
Habitat: human-inhabited areas
Diet: none; feeds off of people’s restlessness

Appearance: Isogashi is a blue-skinned monster with floppy ears, a big nose, and a massive tongue which flops out from its mouth. It runs about frantically, as if it had a million things that it needs to do. It is a type of tsukimono, a class of yōkai which possess humans.

Interactions: Humans possessed by isogashi become extremely restless and unable to relax. They constantly move about, doing things. However, this is not an unpleasant feeling. On the contrary, people possessed by isogashi feel a sense of security in getting things done. Sitting around and doing nothing at all makes them feel as if they are doing something wrong.

Origin: Isogashi first appears in the Muromachi Period Hyakki yagyō emaki picture scroll, in which it is presented without any name. This painting actually spawned two different yōkai.

During the Edo Period, the monster was copied into a hyakki yagyō picture scroll with the name isogashi written beside it. No other description was given besides the name. Around the same time, Toriyama Sekien attempted to give the nameless yōkai from the original Hyakki yagyō emaki illustration a name and an identity. He included it in his collection of tsukumogami Hyakki tsurezure bukuro, dubbing it tenjōname.

Later, this yōkai appeared in a number of other picture scrolls, with the name isogashi appearing next to it. Despite being based on the same picture, tenjōname and isogashi developed into separate yōkai.

Aside from paintings, nothing but a name was recorded for isogashi until the Shōwa Period. It does not appear in folklore or legends. Mizuki Shigeru came up with the description of this yōkai as a spirit which possesses humans, and his description stuck.

Kerakera onna
倩兮女
けらけらおんな

Translation: cackling woman
Habitat: alleys near red light districts
Diet: none

Appearance: Kerakera onna are gigantic, horrid yōkai found in red light districts. Their name comes from the cackling sound of their laughter. Kerakera onna appear as enormous, middle-aged women in colorful brothel kimonos, with thick make-up and slathered-on lipstick. They skulk around in alleyways and on empty roads, dancing, laughing, and mocking the profession that worked them to death. They are rarely seen outside of the pleasure district—the place responsible for their creation.

Interactions: When a man passes a lonely street or alley haunted by a kerakera onna, she unleashes a horrible, shrill cackle that can only be heard by him. A weak-hearted man faints right on the spot, but one who has the constitution to flee finds that no matter where he goes, or who he turns to, the cackle echoes in his ears; nobody else can hear it. Eventually these men are driven insane by the incessant laughing—repayment for the lifetime of abuse the kerakera onna went through.

Origin: During the Edo period, the average lifespan of a prostitute was only 23 years. The demands and hardships of such a life were too much for most to bear. Work hours were long and difficult, pay was low, and abuse was commonplace, both from clients and employers. Very few women made it to middle age. Like most long-lived things in Japan, those who made it were said to become extremely powerful. When aged prostitutes died after serving in such a painful world for so long, their ghosts could not pass quickly and easily on to the next life. Instead, they became kerakera onna.

Kowai
Kowai狐者異
こわい

Translation: strange fox person; origin of the word for “scary”
Habitat: food stalls, garbage dumps
Diet: any scrap of food it can get its hands on

Appearance: Kowai is the ghost of a gluttonous person who carried his or her obsession with food into the next life, transforming into this yokai after death. It takes the form of a grotesque human with fox-like features, blood-shot eyes, sharp teeth, and a long, drooling tongue. It appears at night outside of food stands and restaurants.

Behavior: Kowai is concerned with only one thing: eating. It is always suffering from hunger, and ravenously devours any bit of food it can get its claws on. It rifles through garbage pales, knocks down food stalls, and attacks food vendors late at night, picking up whatever scraps they leave behind. It will even pick at carrion in the streets. No matter how spoiled or how disgusting, if it can be eaten, kowai will go after it.

Origin: Kowai first appears in the Ehon Hyakumonogatari, an encyclopedia of ghosts published in 1841. Its name is written with kanji meaning “fox,” “person,” and “strange,” and so can literally be translated as “weird fox person.” According to that book, this yokai is the origin of the word 怖い (kowai), which is the Japanese word for “scary.”

Nigawarai
Nigawarai苦笑
にがわらい

Translation: bitter smile
Habitat: inhabited areas
Diet: hatred and ill-feelings

Appearance: Nigawarai are large, ugly yōkai with horns and green-tinged, hairy bodies. They wear dirty rags. Their hairy mouths are twisted into what looks like a forced smile. Their hands end in sharp, poisonous claws, which are powerful enough to paralyze small animals.

Behavior: Nigawarai are created out of the negative feelings of human beings—particularly, ill-humor and forced, feigned amusement. As their name suggests, they are related to the uncomfortable smiles that people make when trying to hide their feelings of discomfort. They cause ill-will, disgust and encourage arguments among those around them. They both feed off of and spread these negative feelings.

Interactions: When used in cooking, the poison from a nigawarai’s claws makes food terribly bitter. However, it also has the ability to cure stomach pain, making nigawarai a useful yōkai for medicinal purposes.

Origin: The earliest references to nigawarai go back to the Muromachi period, where they appear in monster scrolls. These paintings appeared without description, so the original intent of the artists in describing this yōkai is unknown. Over the centuries, nigawarai continued to appear in other monster scrolls. Through the work of numerous artists, they eventually developed the traits that they are known for today.