HWE Ame Onna

Name: Ame Onna

Alias: 'Rain Woman', ame-onba, fallen rain spirit, 'guest star on Law & Order'

Alignment: Neutral Evil, sometimes True Neutral and Chaotic Neutral

Rank: 1 Kaijin

Race: Yokai

Size:

Height: About has much as the average woman, on the tall side.

Weight: About as much as the average woman, saturated with water and thus slightly heavier

Powers:

Perpetual Downpour - Ame Onna, at least the eldest of them, are fallen weather kami. A majority of their powers were stripped from them for some ancient transgression. The one major thing they retained was inducing a heavy rainstorm wherever they go or appear. This rain is always heavy and cold but not freezing. Regardless, this is the sort of weather that causes hypothermia to set in if you're out in it for too long. If an Ame Onna hunts in an area long enough, the usual consequences of nonstop rain will ensue. Flooding, water levels rising, difficulty in traveling in or out of the area in any capacity. These rains also help with hiding the Ame Onna's tracks. They are known to lick their arms and hands to drink the rainwater, making them a strangely more self sufficient sort of Yokai.

Grand Theft Newborn - These Yokai can sense if an area their rains are covering has had a birth within a day or was just born. Ame Onna seek out these children and steal them, often stuffing them into a sodden burlap sacks or tucking them into their soggy arms and spiriting them away. They can instinctively hone in on such infants and one can assume that they are 'baby seeking Yokai'. Most boys with a few exceptions are eaten without question, girls on the other hand...

Welcome to the Rain Girl Club - Ame Onna do not abduct newborn babies simply to eat them. If the infant is a girl, the Ame Onna will raise it as its own and that infant will likewise become an Ame Onna herself. What's worse is that mother's of these abducted children will sometimes enter into a state of depression and despair that causes them to run blindly into a rainstorm much like the one that took her infant and try to vainly search for her child. Ame-Onna, half of their number being made of such women themselves, will sometimes seek them out as they splash deliriously through the rain. The Ame Onna then make the forlorn mother an Ame Onna just like themselves, so that she can ease her despair by stealing another mother's baby. Thus the cycle of Ame Onna stealing children and those children becoming Ame Onna or the desperate mother becoming one instead is how Ame Onna increase their numbers.

Depression Touch -The touch of an Ame Onna induces deep depression and eventually despair that is chilling to the touch and lingers like a wet stain. This power to induce or exaggerate sorrow is a large part of how an Ame Onna converts girls and mothers into one of their own and also makes it difficult to engage an Ame Onna that insists on stealing a child. Like many humanoid Yokai, an Ame Onna is stronger than a majority of humanity and can move surprisingly fast, wet surfaces and the like not being an hindrance to them at all. An Ame Onna always has sure footing on a wet surface and can walk across shallow bodies of water like rivers, ponds and streams.

Weaknesses:

Salt - Ame Onna are Yokai of rain and moisture, their rains sustain them. If they can forced or trapped inside and splashed with purifying salt, or some other agent that could dry them out, the Ame Onna screams in anguish and tries desperately to fight or flee. If it is utterly blanketed or buried in salt, the Ame Onna will shrivel up and turn into a fine mist, purified of their material shell. Rarely an Ame Onna can be returned to a human form if they are turned back soon enough and were a human before. But the number of years they have been an Ame Onna still count toward the person's age and they will have no memory of being an Ame Onna or much of anything but sporadic dreams of rain and gloomy figures.

Oriental Faith - Ame Onna can be driven away by rituals, charms and instruments of Oriental Faith, purified salt is particularly lethal to them. These things can keep an Ame Onna from abducting an infant long enough for...

Infant Expiration Date - Ame Onna only steal and find nourishment from newborns and infants only a day old. Anything that is two days and beyond is  of no use to them. Likewise they only turn mothers who have had children stolen by them so preventing the abduction in the first place is essential to stopping an Ame Onna's depredations.

Nothing To See Here Officer - Ame Onna do not like hunting in the same area for too long as it raises suspicions and the possibility of being discovered, either by those who have means of exterminating it or by the Rain Kami that it was either exiled from or turned their back on in order to live among and predate on humans. Dragons in particular are terrifying to them and they are loath to acquire the attention of such a powerful creature. To further dissuade pursuit, an Ame Onna occasionally 'makes good on its parole' with good behavior by ending periods of draught and blessing the fields of desperate farmers. By balancing out its baby theft with the occasional blessing the Ame Onna can skate under the radar for years. Capturing and threatening an Ame Onna with discovery by weather spirits/Yokai that are more powerful than it is can garner a favor from the Ame Onna in exchange for its release

 ----

Day 22: Rain Spirits and Extendable Necks

The storm hadn't abated one bit since the end of yesterday and sure enough Ruki was forced to come to Kaithero's lair with a lacquered umbrella held over her shoulder. Rain flowed off the umbrella in torrents, making it look like the Miko was holding up a waterfall. Seeing the sight gave Kaitheros a nostalgic vibe...he was getting a lot of those lately.

"Enjoying the weather?" He asked as she entered.

"I should ask you that." Ruki retorted. "You wouldn't believe how fussy they were over sending me out in this weather."

"How so?"

"Everyone argued over what I should bring or wear to protect myself from the rain. They all had various gear that they swore was better than everyone else's. They even tried to stick me into one of those straw raincoats I saw in a Samurai movie once. That thing was itchy!" Ruki explained while rushing to the safe cover of her work place, shaking the droplets off the umbrella and leaving it to dry near the entrance.

"Not everyone had access to even basic crafted goods, and umbrellas were sign of higher status among many circles. The wandering Ronin made due with what they had."

"Yeah, thankfully one of the mothers took me out back and just handed me this umbrella, saying they would take forever deciding what to send with me. It's simple but it's pretty sturdy and it works. Can't say the same for my shoes though." She admitted, peeling them off to dry as well, getting a small fire going to help with the process and to get cozy.

"It has been some time since Honshu has had a Miko, it's understandable for them to be rather maternal around you at your age."

"I appreciate it, though I wish they'd worry about themselves a bit more with all this rain. The rivers are starting to rise."

"Rain can be both a blessing and a curse both with its onset and departure. Too little and the land withers. Too much and it drowns. The people soon follow. Though I remember mentioning that Rain is not strictly the domain of those who grant blessings and aid to the faithful of humanity."

"Yeah...so I'm guessing there is a Yokai of rain then? Something really scary I bet if it has control over rain."

"Many of them used to have quite a bit of clout, true. Even what they are now is still rather remarkable...if twisted and treacherous in purpose." He snarled, recalling the depredations of this particular Yokai.

"So it's going to be one of THOSE Yokai? Should I get my bucket ready?" She joked, rattling the bucket within arm's reach as she pulled it from under the desk.

"This is not a Yokai that is necessarily grotesque, they were once quite beautiful actually...far as Yokai go. But what they are now is something that induces a very horrific sort of emotional trauma. The sort that ruins families and stains the legacy of an entire community."

"Does it drown people? Flood entire villages? Give them rain enemas?" Ruki rattled off, obviously reaching on the last one.

"I imagine they could at least make possible all of those things but this Yokai is a different sort of threat. The powers it had as a Kami are diluted and now that it is a Yokai it uses what it has left to predate on humans in one of the most traumatizing ways possible." He seethed.

"So...how bad are talking here? Kappa stealing your butt ball bad? Tengu ramming feces down your throat bad? Oni just straight up eating you bad?"

"I'd put them near the same category of offense as an Onibaba to be honest, though not as graphically violent." Ruki's face hardened at the mention of the first Yokai they covered and left her retched on the floor at the mere shared memory of.

"Oh well that's just swell. So there is a slightly prettier race of Rain making Onibaba Yokai out there. I guess when it rains it really does pour." She said sourly. Kaitheros chuckled at her offended demeanor.

"The Yokai I speak of is called an Ame Onna. The first Ame Onna were or were servants of powerful weather kami that alternated between taking the form of clouds or that of rain. They were a feminine sort of spirit that tended the wide spread but minor task of making sure regions under the worship of such kami were gifted with ample rain. In locations too small or remote to bother with usually. Their activities that close to the people they aided brought a level of communication and intimacy that is usually frowned upon and for good reason. For like the Hakutaku they were entities of great power but these weather kami committed a taboo, one wrought from becoming too attached to the people they blessed with rain. As a result, many were either cast to earth, stripped of their divinity and status or willfully turned their back on their origin and masters in order to indulge their new found 'appetite' among mortals. These became the Ame Onna."

"'Rain Woman' huh?  Well that's pretty straight forward. So what form did these Ame Onna take upon 'falling from heaven'."

"Ame Onna appear to be not much more than a sopping wet woman, sometimes of haggish countenance sometimes not. Some are dressed in nothing but a thin bed robe or whatever they wore before becoming what they are now. But it is always soaking and plastered to their bodies. They can look emaciated or voluptuous depending on how much or how recently they have eaten. Their skin is supernaturally damp and cold. Not freezing mind you in the traditional sense but their skin is pallid and cool to the touch, much like a drowned corpse."

"They sound absolutely titillating so far. The Yokai version of the wet T-shirt contest, oh joy." Ruki spat sarcastically.

"Some carry a large black sack, often made of burlap or cloth with them. All Ame Onna come with a never ending rain that follows them everywhere and is a supernaturally stubborn storm that refuses to abate as long as the Ame Onna is in the area."

"A Yokai that has a literal raincloud over its head, next thing you'll tell is that they sing in it and lure horny boys to them so they can drown them."

"Picking off cheeky young men is the domain of other sorts of 'Onna' Yokai but we'll discuss them soon enough. The Ame Onna has a much more insidious objective."

"You compared it to an Onibaba, so I'm guessing it eats fresh babies and has the strength of a hundred men."

"You're doing the impossible and actually making the Yokai more horrible." Kaitheros laughed nervously. "But the primary objective of a Ame Onna is not to simply eat children but to steal them."

"That actually sounds familiar to other legends of monstrous hags, they stuff them in baskets or what not and run off with them to eat, or lure them into their kitchens with houses made out of candies."

"That would be a feat that I'd imagine the Fey would be more interested in. The Ame Onna is only interested in children that are a day old or are newborn. Most boys they will simply devour once they've made their escape, barring the exceptional one that shows potentials for Engima. The girls on the other hand...something worse awaits them."

"I'm seeing a Hansel and Gretel parallel here Thero-Kun. Does the Ame Onna turn girls into slaves?"

"Ame Onna turn baby girls into new Ame Onna."

"...This got eerie fast." Ruki muttered.

"Yes Ame Onna take infant girls to make more of their kind. Their touch induces severe depression, sorrow and chilling despair. A baby raised by an Ame Onna is soon molded into one of them, never knowing warmth, happiness or joy. Always seeking to regain that faint memory of its mother's caress. The Ame Onna 'grooms' their abducted child with their elementally charged Enigma and once the child reaches puberty they will be an Ame Onna in their own right, cast out to hunt on their own. That's not the end of the tragedy an Ame Onna causes either."

"There's more? Of course there is." Ruki answered herself, cupping her face in her hands.

"Mothers who have had their children stolen in this way can also be converted into Ame Onna. They become consumed with depression and despair over their lost baby, desperately trying to find it. Eventually being lured into the same sort of rain storm that marks an Ame Onna's presence. The Ame Onna can sense both newborn children and grieving mothers within the rain's range of coverage. The Ame Onna will eventually isolate and confront the grieving mother, embracing her and making her an Ame Onna in her own right. The despair over their lost child becoming an obsession to replace it with another. So the cycle repeats itself with Ame Onna stealing and eating children and some of those children and their mothers frequently becoming Ame Onna themselves."

"So like an Onryo's grudge curse except it doesn't spread death, it spread despair and misery with the aim of making more Ame Onna."

"More or less. They are not easy Yokai to confront either. They are stronger than most humans but exceedingly so, and they always have sure footing on a wet, shallow, fresh water source."

"Meaning?'

"They can 'walk on water' providing it's fresh water. An Ame Onna in its element holds a great deal of advantages and catching one in its personal downpour is extremely difficult. The intensity of the rain can reach such levels that it begins to cause flooding and makes traveling incredibly treacherous. Moving a new mother and child during such weather is normally not advised which aids the Ame Onna and closing off any escape route but one for itself when it has it's prize."

"That would make sudden, long lasting rain rather suspect though wouldn't it?"

"Yes it would. It would attract the attention of anyone like yourself who knew what to look for as the rain of an Ame Onna is a thick, heavy, and dark sort of rain that comes during the day or night and just as obstructive during either time through either blinding sheets or total lack of visibility. It cannot be tracked by scent due to the rains always washing away any tracks. Ame Onna do not like to stay in an area for too long as it not only attracts those would use Oriental Faith against it, one of its major weaknesses, but also the attention of the same sort of Kami that it was exiled from...or even a Dragon."

"Dragon's don't like Ame Onna do they?"

"Dragons despise them. They see their use of a domain the Dragons possess control over for such purposes to be a smear and insult to their name. Should an Ame Onna's predations attract too much attention, a Dragon may take notice and make an example out of the Yokai in the most efficient manner possible."

"I guess there is some justice after all in the world of Yokai."

"At least on that front. Ame Onna are aware of this however and thus take certain steps to mitigate this threat to their spiritual wellbeing. To throw heat off of them, Ame Onna will willingly bring rains to drought afflicted areas and bring minor fortune to farmers. Some Ame Onna have a migration cycle they set up all year round in which they visit town after town, watering their crops and gardens and passing out small favors in order to hide the occasional infant they abduct before moving on. By the end of the year they will have come back to where they started and the process begins again."

"So now they sound like emotionally deranged baby snatching Yakuza. Doing favors for the community to cover up or 'pay forward' the criminal acts they engage in. You know, if Yakuza were all women that made rain storms wherever they go."

"An apt analogy. They are still a source of undo despair and tragedy for any they so cross."

"Do they feed exclusively on babies? I can't imagine they'd always get their hands on one."

"Ame Onna are strangely self sufficient that way. They primarily drink the very rain water they constantly bring with them, licking it off their arms and hands like wild animals. This can sustain them indefinitely though Ame Onna that have been in such a state for awhile become truly hideous to behold after a time, much how they were when they first lost their divine status. Ame Onna prefer to be in a fully healthy and well fed state before attempting to raise another one of their own, which makes for a bit of pragmatism on their part. When the human population booms, so does the Ame Onnas, when it declines, the Ame Onna waits out the famine as best it can. They rains they bring can bring prosperity to a failing town though usually with the agenda of that town later 'owing it' children to devour and spirit away."

"At least they wait until AFTER the pregnancy is over with before they start eating. Still, I'm with the Dragons on this one, Ame Onna are bad news."

"There is an advantage to confronting an Ame Onna. For all their criminal antics, misguided by delusions of lost motherhood aside, the Ame Onna can be a powerful tool for a Miko. So I wouldn't completely write them off."

"How so?"

"The largest weakness of a Ame Onna is purified salt. Or really any ritually purified substance that acts as a desiccating agent and can dry them out. If hit with a handful of this substance, the Ame Onna's body will evaporate and dry up, screaming in anguish and doing everything in its power to rehydrate and escape. If you manage to lure an Ame Onna into a enclosed location and seal them in, you can manage to separate them from their rain shower and give you a chance to lash the salt or outright burying them in it. This results in one of two things. In old Ame Onna it will turn them into what they used to be, the cloudy and purified weather kami they once were. No longer able to interact with the material plane as a Yokai. If the Ame Onna is still young, there is a slim but notable opportunity to turn them back into the human they once were, the Ame Onna's influence stripped away and exorcised. Though such people still are as old as they would be if they had been human that whole time, leading to adult woman-child's that don't even remember how to talk or walk; as well as mothers now elderly crones that have lost much of their remaining lives chasing the ghost of their departed child."

"The one Yokai that can be turned back into what it used to be peacefully and it's still not that happy of a result." Ruki sighed, disappointed..

"At least there is the possibility of those turned into Ame Onna being saved, because their manner of being turned is not usually death. Others are often cursed with being a Yokai through no fault of their own at times."

"What kind of Yokai could that be? Another 'Onna' perhaps. I don't think they get much worse than the Ame Onna or even the Yuki Onna at this point."

"You'd be surprised. But the next  cursed woman, often oblivious to their transformation is the Rokuro Kubi."

----