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[piratejoe]

Nogitsune/Yako

While we have managed to get excellent infiltrators in the form of the Kitsune, it has become quite clear said kitsune are that of Zenko, or good foxes. As such, they are quite peaceful, and refuse to do things that would be considered...malicious in nature. Of course, being that they are used as our spies, this is not exactly the best. Still, we have a way around this. Nogitsune, or Yako. The more mischievous and malicious of their kind. They ideally will be much more willing to do such things as set a small fire in a important building, kill a specific person, or other such things. Further, there are rumors that they are masters at possession, and could even make infiltration easier by possessing the right person. Though, such is just a rumor. Regardless, in order to make Kitsune the masters of stealth and infiltration we need, and to best utilize such an ability, those capable of doing anything and everything we could need a spy or saboteur to do will be good to take, especially in such an early stage where overt fighting is not in our best interest.

[TricMagic]

Digging Crew: (1) TricMagic
Nogitsune/Yako: (1) TricMagic


Designs
Osakabehime: (1) TricMagic
Mordred: (0)

Osakabehime

Jack the Third, with torch in hand, walked through the halls of the mysterious old castle. There where... a lot of those, around here, he'd found. After his... largely accidental success in bringing in the Kitsunes, he had been sent to recruit yet another particularly elusive 'Yokai'. From what he'd heard though, it's not that nobody knew where she was, it was that nobody could find her when they went there. And so, he wandered through dusty secret passages that looked as though they had not been walked by a single soul in decades, let alone years. Continuing to ramble in his mind, Jack walked yet further, not noticing the pair of bright eyes gazing out at him from the space behind a missing brick.

'Really...' Jack thought to himself. 'I don't think anything is here, let alone some kind of princess.'

And at that moment, his torch went out, and Jack suddenly found his body moving all on its own...


When Jack the Third came to, he found himself on the ground, unable to lift himself from his groveling position, he looked around.

"Finally awake are you peasant?" A feminine voice regarded him. He looked up, to see a beautiful young woman, sat upon a velvet cushioned stool.

"Are you... Osa... Osoka..." He attempted to ask, struggling his way through the foreign name.

Her composure cracks ever so briefly as the woman winces at the mangling of her name."Y-yes, Osakabehime, that is me. Why have you come to my castle, peasant?"

Jack didn't fight, and most importantly, he didn't show fear. You don't live to his age in these woods without knowing how the Tales worked. "We need your help, against the Bookbinders-"

"The who?" The castle princess asked.

Jack gaped, dumbfounded "Y-you haven't heard of them?"

"Why should I care about some group of rowdy peasants, hmm?"

"They, they've taken over the whole kingdom of Camelot, the nearby kingdoms too! They lock away Heroes and Villains alike, and every non-human they catch is either enslaved, or-or killed." He explained, trying to let as little worry slip into his words as he could.

Osakabehime turned her head up at his words "hmmph, preposterous! You expect me to believe that a human army, with no great Hero or Villain at its head, has conquered all of the Woods?"

"It's true! And, and if they know you're still here, they'll absolutely come for you too!"

And then the woman paused. She could tell that the man was speaking the truth, or at least, what he believed to be the truth. The question is, was it actually true?

"I will verify the truth of your statements. Until then you are not allowed to leave this room. Do you hear me."

"Y-yes, your highness... C-could I at least stand up though."

She sighed, waving her hand up and down as she turned away from him to gaze into a basin of water on the other side of the stool she had been sat upon. "Fine fine, you may stand."

And at those words, it felt like an invisible weight had been lifted off of Jacks body, and he rose to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck.



With the strange woman having forbidden him from leaving the room until her decision was made, Jack had taken to observing his surroundings. He wasn't that familiar with it himself, but... he had to admit, the lady seemed to have quite the thing for the arts. Or rather arts of famous, and infamous, local figures. Between the paintings, the miniature sculptures, the books... in fact, he was pretty sure the ink in some of these books looked fresh!
...Normally he wouldn't be one to look through somebody else's things. But just this once, Jack let his curiosity get the better of him, and so he started to read.

"Hmmph, I see you've taken an interest in some of my works, peasant!" The legendary Yokai said.

Jack nodded. "It's real well written, although..."

"Well, spit it out peasant! What criticism do you possibly have of my work?" Questioned Osakabehime.

"Well I'm pretty sure King Arthur isn't a woman..."

"I-its called artistic license y-you uncultured f-fool!" She stammered out, briefly turning his direction before busying herself once again with the basin.

"Uh, o-okay then." Jack said, putting that book down and moving to another. This one had a distinctly more detailed cover, it depicted what looked to be the black knight, crossing swords with a blonde haired woman in an armored blue dress. "Blade... Crossed... Lovers?"

And then he was tackled to the ground by a furiously blushing Yokai "D-DON'T TOUCH THAT!"

Osakabehime, the lady of the walls. Her tastes in art(of all forms) aside, she is an exceptionally powerful, and even more so reclusive Yokai of old. Stories tell of when this castle was still inhabited, she would reveal herself only once a year, and only to the lord of the castle, to tell his fortune. Many had wondered what became of her in the time between appearances. Apparently, she spent her time writing stories and collecting art of various great Heroes, Villains, and Monsters of legend. Recently, she appears to have taken a particular liking to King Arthur.

While the tales where correct about Osakabehime's power, well mostly, after all, those who look at her face do not drop over dead on the spot as the stories claimed, they missed potentially the most important detail. She is only powerful within her domain. When residing within the secret rooms and passageways of the castle, she can gaze into the truth of ones very soul and puppet their bodies with ease, and the castle itself bends to her whims. When she enters the main halls of the castle, she can determine truth from lies and force ones limbs to move against their will, and walls will form and fall where she chooses. Outside of the castle entirely? We do not know for ourselves, but we highly doubt she would get more powerful.

This also applies to her divinations. She can see the inside of the castle an entire year ahead, though often misses very temporary details. But divining the area outside of her castle is much more difficult. Able to see short glimpses of the near future and present. While this should provide quite the boon to our planning, it is far from grand prophecies we had hoped for. Indeed, it seems the thing we are likely to receive the greatest boon from is the messenger spirits that obey her every command. Small, ethereal winged foxes(or perhaps they are bats? They do not possess legs, yet none have seen a bat of such size and shape before), capable of both speech and flying great distances. These spirits will allow us to send messages all across the woods, as well as for her to communicate with us, and us with her.

There is one simple catch, Osakabehime does not leave her castle. Indeed, it is night impossible to convince her to leave her own room, let alone the castle. While one would assume that this is because it weakens her powers, she herself has declared that it is because she is, in her own terms, an 'artistic NEET hikikomori'. In fact, she takes great pride in this, refusing face-to-face social interaction and 'dedicating herself to the arts'. This means that, even if we where to want to deploy her on a mission somewhere, we would likely be unable to get her to go. Additionally, as part of her terms to join us, we are not allowed to set up a permanent post within her castle, so as to not draw unwanted attention her way.

[Failbird105]

Digging Crew: (2) TricMagic, Failbird
Nogitsune/Yako: (2) TricMagic, Failbird


Designs
Osakabehime: (2) TricMagic, Failbird
Mordred: (0)
Big Bad Wolf: (0)

[piratejoe]

Digging Crew: (3) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe
Nogitsune/Yako: (3) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe


Designs
Osakabehime: (3) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe
Mordred: (0)
Big Bad Wolf: (0)

May as well double down on the Japanese mythology thing we have going.

[Failbird105]

Do remember to write up our plans of action guys.

[Kashyyk]

I am not sold on Osakabehime, so have an alternative.

The trees has turned dark and black as he Jack the Third forged deeper into the woods, grumbling as he went. Why was it always him the Green Knight sent out when he wanted to find someone?

Stumbling over a twisted root, he narrowly avoided skinning his knee on a jagged rock. Taking a quick pause to glance around, he saw that he was indeed heading downhill as he had been ordered. His destination was hopefully at the base of the valley, unlikely the other three he'd already checked.

Rocks, roots and sucking mud threatened to make the rest of his journey investing unpleasant as he continued the approach, such that he was so busy looking at his feet that he didn't notice the figure before him until it spoke.

"What's a little pipsqueek like you doing out here?"

Jack's eyes shot up, to see a tall, stocky figure with wild hair and a large club in one hand. Before he could get any more detail though, he tripped on a rocky outcrop and fell in the stinking mud. The figure laughed, deep and loudly, as Jack scrambled to his feet, cursing.

"I am Jack, the,  uh, Green Knight believes we have a joint enemy."

"We share enemies with everyone, for everyone is our enemy! But you amuse me. Take your speech to Lord Shuten Doji, it will be funny to see you get eaten."

The figure turned away and started marching down the hill, Jack hurrying to keep up. Now that he had a chance to look properly, Jack saw the Oni had two great horns coming from its head, dark red skin and rippling muscles barely concealed by a tider-skin loincloth and it carried a great iron-bound club.

Eventually they reached a great ravine at the bottom of the valley. Looking down, Jack couldn't see the bottom in the darkness, but he could feel the telltale tingle of otherworldly power. This must be one of the gates to Tartarus, Jigoku, Hell.

"If you think your words are worth it. Follow" said the Oni, before it stepped off the edge and dropped into the darkness. Jack gulped, closed his eyes, and leapt after.

[Failbird105]

Eh, we could most likely get trolls and/or Ogres with a revision to our disgruntled Tales, we wouldn't need to spend a design to just get a big melee brute. Not to mention the write-up has no explanation of what they actually do, and would give away our theme almost immediately, whereas they'll never even see Osakabehime and ghostly fruit-bats are rather theme neutral(or at least point to a different one)

[Kashyyk]

We most likely could, but the revision would either be more difficult than a design, or the result would be less effective, probably both.

I can of course add a some actual crunch to the design, I just ended up enjoying myself with the narrative and didn't want to switch tone at that point.

Finally, I'm not certain why showing our theme would be a bad thing? After all, its kind of the point, and we can always go off brand if we want. We have the whole world of fairy tales to draw from.

[Doomblade187]

Yeah, there's no *huge* mechanical advantage to hiding your theme.

[TricMagic]

Still fun to do so. And brutes over a communication network that will be difficult to detect? And to be honest, I like our soon to be shut-in-hime.

[Failbird105]

A 'strong but also very stealthy melee unit' design, intended for after Osakabehime, because honestly I don't really know how we'd even find the things without her help.

Frankly, Tales with impressive physical strength are far from rare. Indeed it is quite rare for Tales to not surpass ordinary humans in some capacity. The real problem, is that those Tales with great strength, tend to be somewhat flawed for our purposes. In the case of ogres and trolls, this is simply that they trend towards unintelligence and great size, unsuitable for our methods of traveling in secret and conducting small, precise raids. Oni are prideful, and can often be chased off by a variety of relatively simple rituals, in addition to the same weakness of size. Kappa are polite to a fault.

We had heard of a beast however, that does not have these weaknesses. Creatures called Hidebehind. Large beasts, almost impossible to track down for their impeccable ability to hide behind almost anything. Only the rare drunkard, dwarf, or magically inclined tale has ever truly lived to tell of encountering a Hidebehind, due to their aversion to alcohol and lack of any true(or at least active) magic or defenses against such. And even then, few could give any clear explanation of the creatures appearances. Hidebehind are incredibly elusive, to the point where even we have been unable to track the beasts down. Until recently.

You see, having the aid of Osakabehimes messenger spirits, we have been able to span massive distances of forest with many eyes at once. And, when we cornered one of the beasts, petrified by so many eyes upon it at once, learned of the surprising intelligence of these creatures. For while it could not speak, it certainly understood.

Through this, we have made contact with the Hidebehinds, receiving aid, and learning much about them.

A Hidebehind is, in essence, a bear. In fact, you would be forgiven for mistaken it for one, and this is likely how they have largely escaped Bookbinder attention. For they can simply act as a bear when tracked down. While the abilities of a bear are impressive, let alone an intelligent one, that is far from all the Hidebehind have to offer us.

They are masters of stealth. Possessing the innate ability to move incredibly rapidly in order to escape line of sight, capable of hiding their bodies behind something not even half as large as themselves, and able to leave minimal tracks when needed, Hidebehind are a force to be reckoned with against smaller groups, or when assisting a larger force. For when you believe you may finally have the Hidebehind in your sights, it may in fact be right behind you.


Of course Hidebehind still have weaknesses, make no mistake, but theirs are far more manageable for our purposes. For one, while they may be bears in all but their supernatural abilities and intelligence, well, a bear cannot compare in strength to an Ogre, or a Troll, or many Oni. And they similarly cannot compete with magic.
Secondly, Alcohol is repulsive to them, while they will still gladly fight in its presence, the stench is liable to 'throw them off their game' if you will.
And finally, thirdly, Hidebehind are actually rather skittish. They detest being noticed, and so prefer to avoid large groups when acting as normal, and at all in places it would be conspicuous to find a regular bear. It is unlikely we will be able to convince our Hidebehinds to enter cities or even large villages without groups dedicated to causing suitable distractions nearby, and similarly, they will not fight against notably large enemy forces unless the enemies are themselves being matched by a large enough force of non-Hidebehind allies.

[Kashyyk]

Revisions
Digging Crew: (3) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe
Nogitsune/Yako: (4) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe,  Kashyyk


Designs
Osakabehime: (3) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe
Mordred: (0)
Big Bad Wolf: (0)
Oni: (1) Kashyyk

[Rockeater]

Revisions
Digging Crew: (3) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe
Nogitsune/Yako: (4) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe,  Kashyyk


Designs
Osakabehime: (3) TricMagic, Failbird, Piratejoe
Mordred: (0)
Big Bad Wolf: (0)
Oni: (2) Kashyyk, Rockeater

[TricMagic]

Design votes are nice and all, but what about plans? Also, we'll do better with prediction early over brute strength, particularly with an option to get the knights on our side someday. And Oni are either obvious and red/strong, or blue.

Prediction and communication helps with staying hidden. We lose when our bases are found and driven out. Oni are more suited for later once we have the ability to sneak around and position them for maximum impact.

[Failbird105]

Gonna be honest, I'd much rather have basically anything else rather than Oni's. Especially because, with literally no mechanical write-up, I can't tell anything about them. There's as good odds they'll wind up Ogres that can be chased off by throwing beans as there are that they'll be shapeshifters, or have different colored variants with different capabilities, or literally anything else Oni have been popularly portrayed as.