Yōma Races and Cultures

Unlike humans, even if they live in the same society, Yōma form a body of different species compatible between them, called "**Races**" to indicate they are part of a same people treated equally despite their more or less large differences.

They differ in appearance, powers, culture, and living environments a,d have some specializations permitted by their particular abilities and powers, but remain jacks of all trades in other domains, and they have a pattern and colors that identify them from other Yōma races. They also all have a greater variant, a better version of them they can access with power or age.

An individual born of others of certain races inherit the race's characteristics. It is possible for an individual belonging to one or none of these race (like a human) to become partially another through certain rituals then benefit from their characteristics.

## Races

There, there is multiple races of Yōma divided into 3 categories.

### Human-like

Yōma which are similar to humans even if they remain very different. They tend to have the most affinity with humans, the ability to use their objects and technologies, their own might be usable by humans, and they can even hide among humans as their visual characteristics are rarely very different from them.

#### Ayakashi

A purely human-like Yōma capable of having a perfectly human-like appearance by possessing a body. They generally look like young girls with blood red skin and snake eyes. They are pretty specialized in imitating the human and spying, and can live anywhere they can. They lack of any own culture, and when not rogue are peaceful and considered lesser minions by most.

By possessing a human's corpse, they become a more advanced form, considered their greater form, who dispose of the victim's powers. A human can become an Ayakasashi by their worst emotions upon gathering enough power. They have no possession power anymore, and their appearance becomes that of their victim's with blood red skin, an overall red hue and snake eyes. They thus are more dangerous than their disembodied counterparts and, due to requiring a human's cadaver to possess, are often rogues. They can calm down when aging and soften to become peaceful again.

In either state, Ayakashi lack their own patterns and cultural markers.

#### Red Oni and Blue Oni

Red and Blue Onis are two very similar human-like races of Yōma. They both appear as very tall and muscular women with a large horn on the head, large bestial hands, and pointy ears. They differ in that Red Oni have their horn on the right of their face, red skin, light blue long hair and orange eyes while Blue Oni have light blue skin, green eyes, yellowish medium hair and their horn on the left of the face. There has to be noted that other minor colors do exist, but Red and Blue remain a majority.

Culturally, of all the races, they are the most proud, violent and brutal and have matchless determination. Both are super-strong races capable of vampirism, healing by drinking the blood of their enemies. However, their contempt of long-ranged and small weapons make them mostly grunts in term of soldiers, and they also serve as good workforce for works that require little delicacy.

They wear primitive made of skin, bones and pelt including loin cloths or simple clothes like short one-piece dresses, masks, arm sleeves and leg clothing, but are also capable of wearing fancier clothes, morion helmets and plate cuirasses for certain roles They are highly specialized in hunting, fighting, and blacksmithing. Maces, large hand cannons and long sturdy cleavers are their weapons of preference and they prefer hostile environments to live in with huts and polygonal forts, used to conditions hardly bearable for a human.

The Titan is the Oni's greater variant, extremely tall with both horns, purple hard skin and greater strength. They have the ability to shout opponents away or to consume them in a whole. They are even more brutal than standard Oni.

Tiger stripes are the race's aesthetic color pattern, both in white or orange.

#### Snow Maiden

   Also called Yuki Onna, Snow Maidens are a race of Yōma that look like slim, busty and pale white women with ice blue long hair and eyes. They tend to be colder in temperature than humans at the touch and to hover above the ground a little, freeze things and blast hails.

Culturally, they are soft, sisterly, kind and capable of standing cold, they have an invariable hospitality to strangers. Yet they are weak and shy, they prefer arts and sciences over violence. Bad in melee but excellent at range, they invented gunpowder among the Yōma, giving them the most powerful armed forces among Yōma, with line infantry and bastion-polygonal forts.

They traditionally wear white ample dresses like kimonos and other clothing, while their similarity to humans allows them to wear human clothing ; ribbons and barrettes in the hair and cravats with jabots on the neck are common accessories. They live in cold and snowy places within palaces and wooden or stone houses of architecture varying depending on the region.

The Icicle Maidens, or Tsurara Onna, are the Snow Maidens' greater variant. They are taller, plumpier, motherly and more brave, and have longer and darker hair. They have the ability to create and propel icicle projectiles at opponents. More powerful and charismatic than the regular snow maiden, they often form their nobility.

White are the Snow Maidens' color while light blue parallel lines forming hexagons between them at their ends are their pattern.

### Hybrid

These Yōma mix human body parts with numerous body parts that don't relate to them. They thus tend to mix both human and animal parts, or seem like humans with aberrant bodies, more than a humanlike can be.

#### Crab Madame

The Crab Madames are a race of strong Yōma looking like busty pale women with white hair, blue eyes, blue crab legs and shell serving as natural armor for them, as well as huge crab pincers as their right hands and small ones as their left hands. They also have two blue protuberances protruding from their backs. Left-handed Crab Madames tend to have the large pincers on their left and the small pincers on their right instead.

They are culturally playful, timid, and friendly, yet very defensive. They used to walk sideways only through thanks to Spider Ladies they learned to walk forward. They make use of their great strength and hard pincers to dig homes and mines in beaches and cliffs.

Crab Madames don't wear any clothing, because this is superfluous for them as their shell serve both as natural armor and clothes. They live on beaches and coasts in tunnels dug in cliffs and sands. They lack of any real architecture and can't really practice delicate arts as their pincers can't hold any tool nor activate small machine commands.

The Karkinos is the Crab Madames' greater variant, and are just giant versions of them with harder shells and greater strength but no additional abilities.

Crab Madames chose as a pattern light blue with white discontinuous curves like those they bear on their shells.

#### Spider Lady

The Spider Ladies are a race of quite strong Yōma looking like women with long stiff hair, a spider body from which they can generate silk, and 8 legs. They are divided in multiple subraces varying in size, colors and among which some are poisonous.

They are culturally very kinky and known to be like lewd mothers who have their own special conception of consent that can lead them to harass other Yōma or visitors. They live between trees or in cavities where they sew webs to catch targets for hunt, or to rest, and can live in harmony with other races that can dig or build cavities; or anywhere they can sew their webs. They practice numerous sexual activities with people they selected.

Spider Ladies wear only black swimsuits as tops if they wear any, and black helmets with red openings making it remind of a spider head. Baby Spiders, considered to be an animal-like and not as Spider Ladies, are actually their children as it's only from 15 years old biologically they form their upper human body. Their preferred habitats can differ depending of the subrace, and they are all well-known for the production of fireproof and resistant silk said to be as soft as a tender angel's breasts, as well as their mastery in sewing. They thus make clothing and textiles for all Yōma.

The Arachne is the Spider Ladies' greater variant, a giant version with the ability to totally turn into a spider, sew stronger and poisonous webs; sting opponents and eventually breed with them quickly.

Among spider ladies there is a special type of Half spider lady which can produce silk from her hands palm instead of they're silk producing organ.

Spider Ladies have chosen for a pattern black with 6 rounds and 8 lines. surrounding them, but they wear such pattern only rarely on their own kimonos.

#### Flower Sprite

The Flower Sprites are a race of pretty but weak Yōma looking like busty young women with long hair, large petals on the forearm and hips, concealing their hands, and long stalks instead of legs also serving as a tail. Like Spider Ladies, they have subraces varying in petals' size, shape, and colors. Some can be also toxic through different manners.

They are culturally childish, naive and innocent but more empathetic than Snow Maidens and nearly as kind as them. They have a deep respect for environment as they live in harmony with it standing the limitations this implies. They are also very tolerant to drugs and natural substances through they have matchless expertise in them, and can't be killed with them. They're known for their expertise in plants and their resources, and their skill in herbalism, brewing, perfuming and growing; and are capable of making them as well as antidotes for poisons.

Flower Sprites wear leaves to cover their eyes and bust if they have to, and large butterflies on the back of their heads. They live in tree and floral houses they built from harvested plants, and prefer largely to live in climate allowing dense vegetation, through some subraces prefer climates allowing less dense vegetation. Fairies among the Yōma, Green Paladins serve as their protectors.

The Yggdrasil is the Flower Sprites' greater variant, and the largest greater Yōma. They are large tree-like gigantic women, more mature and motherly than regular Sprites and capable of favoring growth and environmental prosperity around them.

Flower Sprites declared leaves to be their pattern, which is unconventional among all the Yōma' through nobody really cares.

#### Snake Lady

The Snake Ladies are a race of Yōma with strong smell and taste, looking like busty women with short hair, snake eyes and bodies starting from the hips with feathers on the tail, and snake heads as hands. Like Flower Sprites and Spider Ladies they have subraces varying in colors and snake heads, and possibly poisons.

Culturally, they are as kinky as Spider Ladies, but unlike them are actually not as sex-oriented as them, as actually they weave hypnotically just naturally. They can happen to use some tools but are limited because of their snake head hands. They are cold-blooded and need heat to not get limp and be able to move.

Snake Ladies wear bandages on their bust if needed, and on their eyes if they go in lit places, as well as rope ties on their backs. They effectively live in tunnels and dark places they dug themselves or by something else, and they prefer environments with slack ground and high population of preys. Living in darkness and blind in light, they suck at visual works but excem cooking and other works requiring smell or taste rather than sight.

The Dragon is the Snake Ladies' greater variant, with horns, wings, legs and clawed hands instead of snake hands. They can breath fire and have thermal sight.

Their pattern is a snake scale-like pattern with green and yellow scales.

#### False Wall

The False Walls are a race of extremely strong and resistant but slow Yōma born from beneath the surface consisting of irregular large human-like stone bodies from which gemstones protrude. A large gemstone on their chest hides their true body, a busty woman with inverted nipples; stone arms and legs;. They exist in multiple variants varying in rock and hair color, among which the Obsidian kind is the rarest, slowest but strongest and most resistant one who has cold black hair and eyes.

Culturally, they are industrious, hard-willed but greedy. They live and dig in mountains and undergrounds motivated by their basic needs or greed, while singing the song *Mine, Mine, Mine* together, eager to exploit their environment and find metals and gems. Their large and sturdy hands and immense strength make them able to handle heavy and large machines such as drills, or even break stone with their bare hands. Their stone bodies make them very slow but insensitive to swords and arrows and even some calibers of firearms for the Obsidian variant. They eat mostly underground plants that can grow in darkness and humidity, and stand humidity themselves despite they can't swim.

They wear no clothing because of their stone bodies serving as armors, and their true bodies being unable to fuse with these and use them when clothed. They are known to be the best miners, artificers and masons as well as good engineers and blacksmiths to make fairly crude machines, not delicate enough for delicate systems like clockworks. Thus they build huge fortresses underground where they live, harvest resources and smith while they trade minerals with other Yōma.

The Golem is the False Walls' greater variant, a huge version made of refined stone bricks. They possess greater strength and resistance, and might have machinery within their body, but they are slower.

Their pattern is a crystal-like golden polygon present in their masonry.

### Animal-like/Object-like

They don't have anything to do with humans, having totally original bodies or being based on other species than humans. They all have a "human" body to insert within their groups and other Yōma, but are fully animals or objects otherwise, through there can be exceptions.

#### Skull

Skulls are known as the annoying pests among Animal-like Yōma. They are the only ones capable of speaking and thus have intelligence, but they lack of any humanoid body. Like the name suggests, they are flying skulls with fire burning from the eyes and long sharp teeth.

Skulls are aggressive and provocative, as they will turn around their targets telling nonsense, starting by "Kakakakakaa", to make them mad, and eventually bite them. They through are weak and not much resistant yet their jaw is strong. They don't eat nor breath.

#### Tree Spirit

Tree Spirits are green seed-like spheres with a cute leaf growing on the top, through they can split in half and reveal a mouth with multiple pointy teeth. They are the companions and defenders of Flower Sprites, and have like skulls no humanoid body.

They hide in earth and jumps out when disturbed, and they can bite an enemy they find and heal their allies with healing gazes, through their jaw is weaker than a Skull's and they are even less resistant, even if they are very bouncy.

## Rogue

The Rogue Yōma are Yōma who, for a reason or another, became murderous and exiled themselves from the Yōma realm to hide within the human world where they can start to slaughter in order to gather power to eventually turn into a corrupted greater Yōma. Due to the danger they cause, this is the task of Kagura to eliminate them, then to Kaguya to appease them.

Despite their condition of murderous monster, they keep a certain love for sheeps. They have a desire to cuddle and pet them, strong enough to distract them from potential opponents who can just use the distraction to eliminate or appease them.