#ushi-onna

“Kudan” © Matthew Meyer. Accessed at yokai.com here

[A rare double feature! The ushi-onna seemed like a variant with so much else going on, I figured that giving her a separate stat-block was a good idea. The kudan does exist in physical form as fake taxidermy, similar to the ningyo.]

Kudan CR 1 LN Magical Beast This creature resembles a calf with a human head. It stares with wide, haunted eyes.

The kudan is a pathetic but powerful creature, capable of delivering prophecies of great power in its short life. Kudans are born from ordinary cows, but are obviously marked from birth by their ability to speak and human faces. They are eerie creatures, and most who lay eyes on a kudan report a preternatural unease from the beast’s stare. A kudan rarely lives more than a few days, and never survives for more than a month at most.

A kudan is capable of feats of mental might, but they only use these abilities to defend themselves from those that would harm or exploit them. A kudan can be asked to beseech the gods for specific information or can be forced to through magic or threats, but they usually use their fatal communion abilities to ask broad questions about events in the near future that can affect many lives. Their prophecies are fatal to them, causing the creature to shrivel and die shortly afterwards. Before their fatal prophecies, they may share their inborn knowledge of the world with other creatures, particularly lawful ones.

“Inktober2017 Day 18″ © Charity Santiago, accessed at her twitter here

Ushi-onna CR 2 LN Monstrous Humanoid Even rarer than a kudan is the opposite, a creature with the body of a human woman and the head of a cow. An ushi-onna can grow to adulthood and may have a long life, as her prophecies are both less fatal and less reliable. An ushi-onna uses the statistics for a kudan with the giant simple template, except she is a monstrous humanoid instead of a magical beast. An ushi-onna does not have the fatal communion special ability, but adds augury to its list of psychic magic (2 PE). An ushi-onna is CR 2.

Inktober 2017 day 18: Ushi-onna/Kudan

Ushi-onna is a variation of the Kudan yokai, which is a yokai that appears to be a cow with a human head/face. The Ushi-onna is the opposite of this—a woman with the face/head of a cow. The Kudan as a yokai began to appear in stories at the end of the late Edo period, however the Ushi-onna began to appear shortly after WWII.

Ushi-onna/Kudan are said to be able to speak human languages. The Kudan itself is specifically a calf, who shortly after birth speaks one or more prophecies that will come true and then die. While a Kudan's prophecy can vary and be good or bad, the most well known are of major catastrophic events. It is said that a Kudan predicted the Russo-Japanese War and the Pacific War.

Because of their reputation for telling the truth, Kudan are seen as good luck, prosperity, and protection from bad events. One phrase that could be commonly seen in Edo period newspapers was, “Kudan no gotoshi,” meaning “like the Kudan” to try to add credibility to stories. This phrase still exists to assure people of a story’s truth.