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{"The world has changed while I slept... Such decadence, such prosperity, such energy! So this is Human 'civilization...'"}{"It looks so... so... SO DELICIOUS!"}-
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{"Aaaah, man, I'm so hungry...~ Ooh, you're cute! I just wanna gobble you up!"}▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
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{"Aha! I caught it, I caught it! I dunno what it is, but it's definitely lunch!"}▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Abilities
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- Spiritual Predator ~ Male: All Youkai must derive their existences from some form of nourishment. Some live on rumors, others draw energy from the land or specific objects that serve as their tether, and some must steal that energy from a living source. Jorōgumo Youkai fall into this last category, possessing a refined "draining" power that allows them to absorb the spiritual energy of living beings, with a few added caveats. Firstly, although they can drain life through either their own bodies, or through their webs, the efficiency varies based on the method used. Webs can only drain a very small amount of energy slowly over time, they can drain much more quickly via touch, and they can drain fastest of all by ingesting some part of the victim physically. Secondly, their draining is incredibly specialized for absorbing masculine "yang-aspected" energy, meaning that they can feed much more efficiently upon male lifeforms than upon females, or creatures and spirits without a defined gender.
Predatory Youkai perfect this ability as they age, meaning older ones can drain much more energy more quickly. The more energy that is drained, the weaker the victim becomes, and, given enough time, it's perfectly possible for a mature Youkai to kill via this method.
In most cases, actually killing a victim is unnecessary for the purpose of simple sustenance, as simply maintaining their own existences takes much less energy than it takes for a Human to stay alive. However, the more life force a Youkai absorbs above and beyond what is required to survive, the stronger they can become, making it a very tempting prospect.
Oriko, while she has technically lived for hundreds of years, has spent most of that time sealed. As such, she is still a child by Youkai standards, and her ability to drain the spiritual energy of others is incredibly weak. Fortunately, her energy consumption isn't high either, so she can get by with just a little bit of power, and can even subsist for short periods of time on insects and small animals if she can't find a male victim, but she'll probably need to eat a lot more if she wants to grow.
Ability Level: C-
- Enhanced Body/Resistance ~ Male: As beings possessed of a great deal of spiritual energy, many Youkai possess enhanced physical characteristics, such as increased strength and speed, speedy regenerative abilities, or heightened senses and resilience.
As a low-level Youkai, Oriko boasts only slightly enhanced strength and speed. These enhancements are further limited solely to her arachnid features, meaning her humanoid upper body is effectively no different from that of a 16 year old girl. On the other hand, her eight legs possess strength roughly on par with a jackhammer, and allow her to jump to incredible heights, or to demonstrate bursts of tremendous speed comparable to a large land-based predator like a cheetah - although turning is slightly difficult for her. Regardless, while she's not quite supernaturally strong or fast, she's nevertheless pretty impressive by spider standards, and could pose a legitimate threat to any opponent with normal human limitations or vulnerabilities. She's at her best as an ambush-predator, striking unexpectedly to restrain her opponent with her webs, then cripple or skewer them by thrusting her legs like spears.
Additionally, as a Jorōgumo, she possesses some level of innate resistance to damage inflicted upon her by males, and can use spiritual energy she drains to recover quickly from wounds. While normal spiders can amputate up to five limbs and survive, she can regrow even lost limbs over the span of a few days. All her vital organs in her human parts are still beyond her capacity to repair, though...
Ability Level: C+
- Beautiful Temptress: Jorōgumo are capable of exerting some small level of influence on the minds of those they come into contact with. By reversing the draining process and "imprinting" their own essence upon a male's spirit, they can slightly influence that male's thoughts and perceptions to favor them, making it easier for them to seduce their unknowing prey. The victim will begin to subconsciously filter out any aspects of their appearance and behavior that seem unappealing, and focus only on that which he wants to see. Particularly powerful Jorōgumo can even alter a victim's perceptions so much that the victim sees them as a completely different person, such as a loved one, or simply as one's "ideal woman," causing them to abandon their reason and feel blindly compelled to love and adore the Jorōgumo, surrendering their energy willingly, even to the point of death.
...Unfortunately, Oriko not only has no idea how to actually use this ability properly, but actually uses way too much of her own energy, meaning she's just as likely to make herself seem slightly cuter in the eyes of someone currently in contact with her as she is to actually amplify their perceptions of her negative traits. At this point, the only thing she can consistently manage is to make males selectively oblivious to her six extra spidery legs, even if they slip out from under her skirt. Maybe she'll improve as she gets older...
This ability only works on Males.
Ability Level: F
- Dominion ~ Spider: Jorōgumo possess a limited ability to communicate with and transfer some of their own spiritual energy into beings like themselves. In practice, this allows them to talk to and command lesser spiders to do their bidding by creating a bond similar to that which exists between mages and their familiars. More powerful members of the species can even assert dominance over lesser Spider youkai, even those belonging to other types, such as Tsuchigumo.
Although incapable of controlling anything beyond common arachnids, Oriko is nevertheless capable of communicating with and commanding a veritable army of spider familiars so long as she's close by. However, if she tries to spread too many spiders over too much distance, it becomes a bit too confusing for her to keep track of, and she starts losing connection. It's still great for information gathering, though!
Ability Level: C
- Spirit Weaver ~ Golden: The primary ability at the disposal of any Jorōgumo. Capable of exuding magical spider silk from their bodies, they can shape it at will to take on almost any form or properties as they see fit. This can be used not only to create nests, restrain foes, or the like, but can also be used for much more bizarre and esoteric purposes, such as manipulating things precisely like a marionette, or creating copies of objects by "weaving" them into existence. Many Jorōgumo can even weave perfect disguises that, when worn, make even their unnatural bodies appear like those of ordinary humans, and can even create "invisible silk" that masks the presence of whatever it covers not only from view, but also from some magical methods of detection - similar to the transformative abilities of Kitsune or Tanuki.
This silk generally has a few consistent properties, though - those being that it absorbs any spiritual energy it encounters slowly over time, making it difficult to detect using magic, since it just drains the energy sent towards it, and even more difficult to escape from, as it saps the strength of a victim the longer it remains in contact with them. It's also incredibly durable, and becomes tougher the more energy it drains, making it difficult to break through mundane means.
However, it takes a great deal of energy to create particularly good silk, and it takes a great deal of precision and skill to weave it into particularly complicated forms. For a weak Youkai like Oriko, creating decently strong threads is simple, and she can passably manage more complicated projects like weaving clothing from her silk, or creating her rather shoddy disguise by making her front legs look like those of a human and concealing the other six as best she can. However, creating a large quantity of silk at once, or creating particularly advanced constructs such as an "invisibility cloak" or a full-body disguise is too draining for her without a more consistent source of spiritual energy to power her. Of her powers, however, this ability is without a doubt her most advanced, and the one with which she has the most proficiency.
Ability Level: B+
Skills
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- Ambush Predator: Acquired over her hundred year life as a spider, Oriko has an instinctive sense of how best to lay traps using her webs to cover large areas without making them easy to see, allowing her to easily lie in wait to ensnare and feast upon an unwitting victim. She can also spread her webs over large areas to efficiently entrap and drain insects and the like, allowing her to feed without ever actually needing to leave her chosen hiding spot, and without drawing attention to herself.
- Weaver: After encountering modern civilization, Oriko has decided to dabble in haute couture, with surprisingly successful results. She's extremely skilled at designing, creating, and repairing clothing even using mundane materials, not even to mention her own silk. To a certain extent, she's also good at discerning the structure or design of existing objects, in order to create passable imitations out of her own silk. However, she's far more adept with cloth in particular than she is with other materials.
- Faker of Innocence: Lacking any kind of real knowledge how the modern world is actually supposed to work, without a territory to call her own, and devoid of any kind of material wealth, Oriko has learned how to best take advantage of her only major resource: looking... vaguely cute. This is to say, she's incredibly good at giving puppy dog eyes when either feigning innocence or begging for something, and has also mastered the fine art of pouting adorably when upset. ...Huh. Maybe there's hope for her, after all.
Equipment
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- Self-Made Clothing: Made by spiders, of spiders, for spiders! Due to being infused with a great deal of her spiritual energy, it's actually a low-level magic item which she can reshape at will, use to constrict her victims like a normal web, and, to a certain extent, alter the physical properties of to make it more durable, conceal her magical energy, or other similar effects. While it's not very powerful due to her current state of weakness - and because even if she can reshape it, she can't change its mass for obvious reasons - it's still a pretty nifty gimmick item.
Background
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Once an ordinary spider, the being who would eventually become known as the Lady Weaver of the Lake, Mizūmi no Oriko, was one of many such creatures which came under the thrall of the man-eating Jorōgumo who lived in Kashikobuchi in Sendai. Although this Youkai's identity has been lost to time, her famous exchange with a crafty priest of "Clever, clever," gave the pool its present name. Although Oriko doesn't consciously remember much of this period of her life, she does know that there was eventually a great battle between her mistress and a force of Onmyouji sent to exterminate her due to the threat she posed. The great youkai was defeated, her essence utterly scattered, and her tribe of spiders dispersed, Oriko included.
Due to the lingering remnants of her mistress' spiritual energy that remained within her, however, her body never began to fail or die, and as she grew older, the power within her also grew. At last, when she had reached 100 years of age, the power within her burst forth, reshaping her into a new being: a Jorōgumo in her own right.
Originally nameless, and with little knowledge of the world, she did as she vaguely recalled her mistress to have done. She built herself a home at the bottom of a small lake close to a town called Minazawa, and there she waited, and she watched. At first, she simply fed upon the insects, creatures, and eventually even the other spirits of the lake. But as these food sources dried up, she found herself hungering for the distant and untasted power of Humans.
Her earliest efforts were rather bizarre, but commendable. She feared the men who had killed her mistress would come for her, too, unless she behaved differently. So, she came up with a different plan. She spoke to the spiders from the nearby village, used their eyes to learn more about the Humans and their ways. She tried to make herself like them, but with little success. She could not hide her monstrous form save with a long gown, and thus could only afford to let herself be seen while sedentary. So, if she could not go to the Humans and walk unknown amongst them, she would have to draw them to herself.
Weaving for herself a tent by the side of the lake, she sat there day and night, weaving clothes like those she had seen the Humans wear. When Humans passed along the road by the lake, she would call to them, and ask them if they wanted clothing. She would trade it for anything curious they happened to possess, and through this method came to learn more of the world. And, when men wore the clothing given to them by the strange girl, little by little, it would drain their energy, so subtly that most did not even notice the change. Her skills improved, and so did the quality of her work. Eventually, word spread in the village of the weaving girl by the lake, and thus, she finally received a name.
Due to the quality of the cloth she created and the fact that she would oftentimes trade fine attire for valueless trinkets and baubles, many people began to seek her out, to take advantage of her naivete. Others came simply to see her, for her beauty was spoken highly of by all the men she encountered as she put her natural talents to good use. However, because of this, it soon became obvious to everyone that the girl by the lake never left her tent, and never stopped weaving - day or night, sun or snow. She was too scared to, because she thought that if she was seen as she really was, then men like those who had killed her mistress would come for her, too. She did not realize how strange this was, and thus, did not even know that she had given herself away.
At some point, a young boy in the village died of a mysterious illness. As it turned out, when he fell ill, he had been wearing a kimono made by the mysterious Oriko. The people's suspicion turned to outright anger, and they blamed her for his death. In truth, not even Oriko herself knows whether or not she was the one who killed him, but that changed nothing. One night, the spiders came to warn her that the people of the village were coming to kill her and burn all her work. Driven by fear, she revealed herself at last, and dove into the lake, hiding within its depths as everything she'd worked so hard to create was put to the torch. Angrily, she lashed out against them, trying to drag them into the water as her mistress had done, but they fled, and she was all alone once again.
The villagers' fear was not settled. They knew she still lived, and thus sent out a call for an experienced Onmyoji to come and purify the spirit that had taken shelter within the lake. Soon, one came, and journeyed to the lake, calling out to her and asking her to speak with him. But she could sense his power, and would neither rise to the surface, nor attack him, and so his efforts ended in failure. He rested, rethought his plan, and returned the next day, bearing gifts of the sort which she had asked for in exchange for the clothing she had made. Unable to contain her curiosity, she at last rose to the surface of the pond, and spoke with him.
He said that he was not there to hurt her, but to make peace. That it had been a mistake, and the villagers were sorry. He praised her, complimenting her on her beauty, and on her skills as a craftsman. Day after day he returned, telling her stories of the outside world, of the villagers who longed to be forgiven, and of his love for her.
And so it was that the deceiver was deceived, the seducer seduced, and the beguiler beguiled. Oriko made the greatest mistake of her life... and fell in love. She emerged from her lake at his request, only to find herself trapped inside a seal of his creation. She begged, she pleaded, she cursed, and she raged, but it was all for naught. Her essence was scattered, rendered dormant, and sealed within a charm which he cast back into the lake to remain until the end of time. There she thought about his words, and about her own foolishness, for almost 200 years.
"One would think that you, of all beings, should know better than to trust the flowered words of those who claim to love."
However, now, two centuries later, something has happened. By some means of which she knows not what, the seal binding her was broken, and her essence was released. She emerged once more from her lake to find the world a greatly changed place... and the story of her own ignominious life nothing more than a fairy tale.
But she was hungry, both for energy to sustain her weakened spirit, and for power - power that would make all humans trust and adore her, just as she had once foolishly trusted and adored. And then, she would... She would...
To be honest, she didn't know what she'd do, and quickly forgot her original reasons entirely. As it turned out, nobody believed in Youkai anymore, so she could basically do what she wanted and live as she pleased! Besides, as it turned out, Human civilization was now even more fun than it had been 200 years ago, and she was eager to catch up on everything she'd missed.
...What, you actually believed she'd have a serious backstory? Hah. As if! There's no reason a great and powerful Youkai like her would ever get worked up about something so stupid as an old crush, idiot!
No reason at all why those words would still mean anything... anything at all. Definitely none.
"Whatever, I'm hungry. I wonder if there's anyone tasty around here...?"
Miscellaneous
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The kind of person who always has food on the mind. Fond of playing pranks and human forms of entertainment, usually video games or making fun of people on the internet, although she prefers to call it the world wide web. Likes living in dark, cramped spaces which she can easily cover with webs. Besides, too much light hurts her eyes, and she sunburns easily after spending 200 years sealed away. Tends to trip when walking on just her "human" legs, since she's still not used to being a biped. She can easily be convinced to do things if sufficiently flattered and/or bribed. However, if she finds out she was manipulated, she'll probably tie you up, write a bunch of insults on your face, and beat the crap out of you.
Hates people who think they're smarter than her, even - no, especially - if they actually are. She's particularly fond of responding to being tricked with the phrase "Clever, clever!" given in mock-praise as if speaking to a child, so as to put down whoever deceived her. ...Wait a second, she's just ripping off her old mistress' catchphrase! At least be original, damnit!
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