#yaoguai

Yāoguai, the Chinese spirits/demons

Yāoguài (妖怪) is a broad, diverse class of creatures in Chinese mythology. They can be anything non-human (usually animals, but also plants... even inanimate objects!).

Although the term yaoguai is commonly translated to English as "demon" it is important to note that not all of them are evil; malevolent or morally grey entities are typically called guai (怪 - "strange monster"), gui (鬼 - "spectre or ghost") or mó (魔 - "demon", closer to the Western sense).

So... what define 'yaoguai'?

Setting them apart from other type of monsters, is the possession of supernatural powers; These abilities—like shapeshifting or mind control— usually defy the natural and heavenly order.

Essentially, yaoguai are animals or objects that "level up" by absorbing enough life energy (called Qi - 氣 - pronounced 'chi') to become intelligent, magical beings. This accumulation of energy is sometimes achieved through Daoist practices - like training and meditation -although some of the yaoguai are just created by other reasons, for example misfortune and by "accidents" in nature.

They often strive for immortality: if they succeed in their goal, without becoming malevolent, they can even become divine beings, similar to deities.

YAY SMILE!!

It’s gonna be chinese new year soon. So while now we’re still in the year of Snake, I wanna share some thoughts related:

We know that both Xuanji and Sifeng have pet snakes, but I want to talk about more than that. We can see that Xuanji initially didn’t have a once of maliciousness in her, but when she destroys, she destroys. She isn’t the first female character who showed this characteristic. In fact, in ancient chinese stories, Lady White Snake of the city of HangZhou both saved and destroyed Hangzhou and yet was worshiped in the same city too, which must seem peculiar if put like this.

I want you to imagine, you’re a peasant in ancient China. The imperial, the clan, all pile onto you, you don’t have much power. All you have is plow in your hands and you use it to plow the earth to provide for yourself and your family. You try to be a good person, but more often you feel powerless in your circumstances. The rampant collectivism and social rules pushed down on you, it’s suffocating. You can’t do much.

But you heard the story of Lady White Snake, who is kind and loving and protected the land until some nosy “authority” tried to take it all away from her, because in patriarchal China there was no free love, everything was in strict order, and emotions must not be allowed to run amok. She fought back. She is supposedly an unorthodox being, a 妖, a powerful one, and even more than that, she is female, a woman who loved her not powerful, but very kind husband.

And an idea inspired in your labor-ladened head: You want to worship her! You set up a secret temple for Lady White Snake, you prayed to her: Soon, you find others who did the same, and the excitement you felt! It was probably unparalleled to anything else you did in your life.

Now as an onlooker, do you think those people aren’t ordinary citizens who would be destroyed by that great battle? But Lady White Snake is worshipped in the City she supposedly brought to ruin in her fight to bring back her beloved.

See what Boss Xu was up to on bsky 🔞: https://bsky.app/profile/intrudecate.bsky.social/post/3mebopciazk2a

(art by BlackHornedArts on DeviantArt)

The journey to self-perfection is a never-ending one, they say. You can always become better than you were yesterday, but inevitably, your goals will change, and so perfection changes with it.

The pursuit of such personal enlightenment is often translated from eastern texts as “self-cultivation”, because you’re literally bringing out your best self the way that a farmer, orchard tender, or even your local bonsai enthusiast carefully grows and shapes the plant life in their care.

As such, the pursuit of self-perfection in the real world has references to pretty much every eastern philosophy, and several western ones too. Almost like wanting to be a better person is a universal constant or something.

But in mythology and fantasy writing, cultivation can be so much more than being more mindful, and can outright grant immortality to those that perfect it. Ever read Journey to the West? The sage that taught Sun Wukong his first method of immortality (along with all his shapeshifting and whatnot) did so through cultivation practices (before being rendered somewhat moot by Sun’s many other forms of immortality).

The point being is that through special rituals, self-examination, and spiritual awakening, some rare few individuals seek the path to immortality, joining the ranks of the peers of the heavenly hosts.

However, just like the Daoist sage that taught the Monkey King, the divine do not approve of this method of immortality, claiming it is a subversion of fate and destiny (and, you know, a form of immortality and perhaps godhood anyone can attain would be very disruptive too). And so those who dare this path are carefully watched by the gods and the imperial dragons alike, and subjected to trials that do not pull their punches, threatening a very final end to those that falter.

So if you want to play a character that dares reach for such a lofty goal despite the opposition, this archetype might interest you.

The base dedication for this archetype comes with the expertise about occult matters required to begin the process of refining one’s qi, and those on this path can expend such qi to subtly change their bodies to adapt to whatever situation they find themselves in.

Using their qi to empower their legs, some cultivators can unleash bursts of supernatural swiftness and agility, becoming extremely mobile.

Emulating a divine being that is above the filth, the aforementioned qi abilities allow some to step lightly over the mud, muck, and thick foliage of the material world, ignoring it’s slowing effects.

Cultivators often have truly incredible vitality, bolstering their ability to survive and recover in several different ways.

Like flowers returning after winter passes, many of these mystics can channel some of the energy of their qi arts into healing themselves.

Some of these ascetics hone their spiritual senses to the point they can sense both life energy and mystically valuable substances as well.

From here, the path of cultivation actually splits between those that seek immortality via a deathlike state and those that do so in a form that is flush with life. The deathlike state earns the user the enmity of most other cultivators as an unnatural path, but does grant some power over the spirits of the dead and of darkness. This allows them to be their own secondary caster in rituals that call such spirits.

The more traditional path is one of life, however, and becomes apparent when the cultivator starts needing barely any sustenance to survive. They can also shelter themselves from the environment with their qi alone, and manipulate their qi to heal themselves at an accelerated rate with just rest.

From there we have the zenith of the two paths. For the ghost path, this means becoming a being akin to an undead creature no matter if you are living or not, and learn the arts for creating unquiet undead, particularly those whose fates were especially cruel.

On the lighter path, cultivators become living and truly ageless beings, no longer having a finite lifespan. Additionally, they channel esoteric secrets to guide and enhance plant growth and manipulate the weather.

At the lower level feats, this archetype provides enhanced movement and recovery, while at higher levels it offers a dark path and light path, both having their own options. Whether you dabble in it or go whole-hog, it can prove quite viable no matter your class and build.

Being a cultivator means being stubborn. It’s dedicating oneself to a path that has a coveted reward, that many people envy you for daring to try, but also urging you to give up, that it isn’t worth it. Celestials and dragons that see you as a potential disruptive upstart, mortals that see you as either a potential legend or a lesson in the folly of hubris, and of course fiends that offer shortcuts to that power that will only ruin your chances. Cultivating immortality is a path that sets one apart from nearly all other beings, save for other cultivators, and those can vary in extremes of personality from serene benevolence and jovial kindness to the most wicked and monstrous cruelty imaginable. It’s no wonder that many of the rare few that seek this path are yaoguai, either seeking to return to a former celestial position or aiming to claim one of their own from humble origins.

The land of Ho Quan is legendary for it’s concentration of cultivators living among the inhospitable mountains, aloof and introspective. But the quasit imp Brikkas has a dream of finding a chink in the spiritual armor of one, offering a potential shortcut to immortality and offer the powerful rarified soul to their master.

Rising like the spine of some great sea serpent from the waves, Dragon’s Comb Island is composed of staggering natural pillars of stone, and is home to the Old Salt, a mysterious old man who appears in tales going back generations. But who is he, and what secrets might he know?