Okay, more brainstorming help needed. :-) (All my usual brainstorming outlets are playing in my campaign, or else they don't know L5R at all.)

This plot centers on a pair of cousins (Reishin, an Earth shugenja, and Kazu, a Kenku-trained bushi) who are both Cursed by Gaki-do because of something their grandfather did years ago. The grandfather (a Toritaka-trained bushi) had encountered a very unusual gaki -- one that feeds on love, rather than flesh or something else gruesome. The gaki could theoretically have been redeemed had the grandfather let it feed off him and his wife, but instead he assisted an exorcist in banishing it, and that's why his descendants are cursed.

So! I want to give the cousins a chance to do something about this. Kazu is madly in love with his wife (a Tamori shugenja), but she's not with the party right now, nor is she likely to rejoin him any time soon. Reishin is madly in love with his ex-yojimbo Enso, who is with the party, but he thinks Enso doesn't love him back; in the meanwhile, Enso is madly in love with Reishin, but doing his ex-Scorpion best to hide this fact because he's trying to be honorable and being somebody's ronin lover isn't really great for either of you. (Reishin is engaged to an Asahina shugenja, but they both know there's no affection there, just a mutually convenient beard situation. And she's not with the party right now, either.)

Other people more peripherally involved with the situation: another shugenja with the Toritaka Exorcist path whose true love is currently MIA for crazy plot reasons, plus an Ikoma Bard and a clan monk who keep having Romeo-and-Juliet romances (but generally with less death) in one lifetime after another.

Added twist: Enso has a magical tattoo whose use has not yet been specified in game. I'm thinking of having it be the Inro tattoo from Great Clans, which would allow him to imprison the gaki in his own body.

Added twist #2: Kazu had a vision of his grandfather defending the shugenja when the gaki was banished, and has been working to develop a kata based on what he saw. The effect we've designed for this kata is "If you take no hostile action during the round, you may Guard as a Free Action," but Kazu hasn't actually mastered it yet; I'd love the moment when it finally clicks to be something involving this gaki.

With all that introduction out of the way . . . I could use help coming up with a maximally interesting configuration for these pieces. :-) Since I'm using Bayushi Shoju being a "gaki of courage" as my model for this gaki, I figure it doesn't actually destroy what it feeds on; instead it benefits from being in the presence of love. Maybe Enso doesn't know that, and takes on the gaki because he thinks it will cure him of his own attachment? Or maybe he catches it about to feed on Reishin and imprisons it in order (he thinks) to save Rei? Or maybe he imprisons it without knowing he's done so? (He's never used the tattoo before and doesn't know what its effect is, so triggering it unconsciously is entirely possible.) What usefully weird effects might kick in when Enso has this gaki inside him? How can I involve Kazu's new kata in the whole process -- who is attacking whom, that he would need to be Guarding?

I'll note that I'm inclined to handwave the Exorcist noticing the spirit on the grounds that the technique only senses *dangerous* spirits, and a gaki that feeds on love isn't dangerous. Events could go in a way that make it become a threat, though, at which point the Exorcist would notice.

Any ideas? I'm going for Maximum Drama here. :-D

a very unusual gaki -- one that feeds on love, rather than flesh or something else gruesome

Can it feed on platonic love? Because if it can, then the cousins and the yojimbo are eligible.

This can in fact lead to an interesting situation. What if the gaki becomes greedy and feeds too much love? What if it eats away all the love from the characters? What if the sudden disappearance of love causes an internal disharmony in the characters, and they begin feeling hatred towards the one they loved before the gaki showed up? That can be some pretty hefty drama right there, especially knowing the internal mechanisms of your party.

The gaki then moves on to the rest of the party, but they would be, like, "NOPE" and destroy the gaki, releasing the love it has consumed from the other characters. This can be potentially a valuable life lesson for Reishin and Enso, as they have to reconcile and potentially admit their love along the way. You can even go with all sorts of Togashi-related themes like internal harmony/disharmony, repressed emotions giving way to darkness, and shedding light on who we really are.

Can it feed on platonic love? Because if it can, then the cousins and the yojimbo are eligible.

I'm not sure what you mean by that? I was thinking of it as feeding on romantic love, but the cousins and the yojimbo are still eligible, because all three of them have romantic feelings for somebody.

This can in fact lead to an interesting situation. What if the gaki becomes greedy and feeds too much love? What if it eats away all the love from the characters? What if the sudden disappearance of love causes an internal disharmony in the characters, and they begin feeling hatred towards the one they loved before the gaki showed up? That can be some pretty hefty drama right there, especially knowing the internal mechanisms of your party.

Well, but if I'm using Bayushi Shoju/Gaki of Courage as a model, this doesn't actually consume people's feelings in the sense of taking them away -- I don't think Shoju turned people into cowards by stealing their courage. Of course I don't *have* to do it that way, but I suspect my players wouldn't have as much fun with "you hate this person now." (We've sort of been through that phase already, when Enso was trying to get the whole party to hate him enough to kill him, and then when he was a jerk to Rei in a failed attempt to make Rei stop loving him.) I think it would fit better with the current flow of things if the gaki's presence was more likely to make people tip over the edge into (unwise) outpourings of love, rather than draining that away.

Can it feed on platonic love? Because if it can, then the cousins and the yojimbo are eligible.

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

I was thinking about whether the love must be expressed in order to feed the gaki. Like, simple longing doesn't cut it, only open love clearly expressed between the lovers.

Well, but if I'm using Bayushi Shoju/Gaki of Courage as a model, this doesn't actually consume people's feelings in the sense of taking them away

Yeah, after reading the relating sidebar, I too realized that the gaki would make their love burn even brighter, and not stiff it out. In which case, you can have cliche soap opera tier love drama with love dodecagons and call it a day. Depending on how seriously your players take samurai drama, the story should fold out all on its own from there. I don't know how well-off you are with NPCs who could be good for this, but you can always set up some sort of a "Hateful Eight scenario" (lock up the party with a bunch of strangers) with all sorts of people who are suitable for the story.

Like, a terrible blizzard chases the party to a (unisex) monastery mostly inhabited by retired samurai. There, they must spend a few days until the blizzard passes and the snow clears. The gaki catches up with them there, and the spirit decides that this must be the perfect occasion to turn the love-game to overdrive an turn the monastery into a Temple of Love. The relatively weak-willed monks and nuns fall quickly, then Enso too gets the shorter end of the stick. The PCs must act quickly before the gaki grows too powerful and too greedy, two things that would definitely spell doom to everyone in the monastery.

I was thinking about whether the love must be expressed in order to feed the gaki. Like, simple longing doesn't cut it, only open love clearly expressed between the lovers.

Oh, that I agree with. I basically think that redeeming the gaki can happen if Reishin and Enso sort out their crap (whereupon there will be much rejoicing from the rest of the party, who are tired of beating their heads against the Wall of Awkwardness). Which is part of why I *really* want to work in Kazu's kata -- because if the redemption of the gaki is based on the behavior of other characters, him having the epiphany that lets him perform the kata successfully is a good way to arrange a satisfying payoff for that player, too. But that means there needs to be some kind of attack going on, whether from the gaki or something else. (Since this is the Togashi Dynasty setting, pretty much *anything* could attack them, spiritual or mundane.)

Yeah, after reading the relating sidebar, I too realized that the gaki would make their love burn even brighter, and not stiff it out. In which case, you can have cliche soap opera tier love drama with love dodecagons and call it a day. Depending on how seriously your players take samurai drama, the story should fold out all on its own from there.

We're not really aiming for the "and then they lived tragically ever after" kind of story -- more the type of situation where that's the default in the world around them, but the PCs are those rare people who manage to find personal happiness while also fulfilling their duties.

As for how this plays out, I'm hoping for something better than cliche soap opera.

Like, a terrible blizzard chases the party to a (unisex) monastery mostly inhabited by retired samurai. There, they must spend a few days until the blizzard passes and the snow clears. The gaki catches up with them there, and the spirit decides that this must be the perfect occasion to turn the love-game to overdrive an turn the monastery into a Temple of Love. The relatively weak-willed monks and nuns fall quickly, then Enso too gets the shorter end of the stick. The PCs must act quickly before the gaki grows too powerful and too greedy, two things that would definitely spell doom to everyone in the monastery.

Man, if I hadn't already done a plot of the "you are stranded at a monastery where a spiritual force is preying upon the monks" variety . . . that was literally one of the first plots in this campaign. <lol> (And actually, that involved love, too: a samurai who had been forced into retirement because of a forbidden affair between him and the daughter of a Minor Clan Champion. When he died, he became a shiyokai and started feeding on his fellow monks.) I think I'll need to find a different approach, though, to avoid rehashing.

Some random thoughts before I fall asleep:

I wonder, do the players know that the gaki from which their characters' family curse stems is a Love Gaki*? Or I suppose more to the point, do the characters? Which bits of information they have already and which bits are still up your sleeves might change the possible scenarios a little bit. Is it a matter of "Surprise! All the monster wanted was love all along," or more that they have much the same information as their ancestor but will be given have a chance to make a kinder decision with it?

You mention you're modeling the gaki on Shoju, who became a gaki of Courage--but of course, Courage is a more uniformly valued and positive emotion in Rokugan than Love. Courage is right there in the code of Bushido! Love has kind of a mixed track record by comparison.

If the gaki is the soul of some poor wight who was either starved of or greedy for love in their lifetime, it might not have an entirely balanced, healthy, or socially acceptable concept of love (not that those three things are necessarily fully compatible in Rokugan in any case!). If its ecological niche once it gets back into Ningen-do is to batten on to someone strong in its preferred emotion and then stir its victim up to greater heights of love so it can feed, the PCs might well find it causing trouble, even if not on the same scale as, say, a shikko-gaki. A misguided love-gaki could in theory leave a trail of broken families, ruined careers, love suicides, and horrible poetry anywhere it roamed. But only the most perceptive of spiritual experts would be able to say for sure whether/how much the mess was caused by the gaki rather than just being an existing situation that it was naturally drawn to.

A love gaki could also easily attract and/or fall in with a bad crowd of other gaki that feed on related but less savory emotions--lust, fear, rage, dominance, greed, etc. (It would probably be the hungry runt of such a pack, poor thing! But it could get by.) Your PCs could encounter it in that context--in which case it might well change sides and help the love-filled members of the party defend against its fellow gaki, confusing the heck out of everyone. No honor among hungry ghosts, after all. Oooh! Maybe the gaki pitching in to strengthen a defensive effort could fill in that last piece of inspiration for the new Guard kata. Unless that's too inside-out, I don't know.

If your players know what kind of gaki it is, I'm tickled by the idea of Enso trapping it when they meet it in hopes it will eat away his inconvenient feelings only to have the opposite occur. If they don't know, it could still haunt them secretly somehow (or maybe they engage it and Enso traps it reflexively with his tattoo, but once it's trapped the Exorcist PC can no longer sense it, at which point they'll think it's gone?). Either way, from the way you've described Enso in this and other threads, it might be plausible that having saddled himself with a spirit that makes him fall even harder for his charge, he'd try to bleed off his feelings in self-destructive ways--channeling "caring too much" into anger or violence against others, pursuing a dishonorable affair with a third party just to prove his unworthiness as an object of anybody's affection, etc. etc. (Other romantically inclined NPCs could be affected too, if that makes it more interesting.) All that negative emotion might be attractive to nastier gaki, too--which could also be another way to set up the kind of fight I was musing about in the paragraph above. Hmm.

*a phrase my brain found oddly hilarious and which I now can't help picturing as the title/eponymous main character of a madcap anime... but anyway...

Messages passing in the night! :-)

I wonder, do the players know that the gaki from which their characters' family curse stems is a Love Gaki*? Or I suppose more to the point, do the characters? Which bits of information they have already and which bits are still up your sleeves might change the possible scenarios a little bit. Is it a matter of "Surprise! All the monster wanted was love all along," or more that they have much the same information as their ancestor but will be given have a chance to make a kinder decision with it?

Ahhhh, good question; I should have clarified that in my initial post. They know the gaki Kazu saw in his vision was weird -- not a type anybody's been able to ID -- but they don't know yet what it was, exactly. One of the courses of action they could follow, but have held back on thus far, is to use Call the Spirit to summon the **** thing and examine it themselves. They've gotten a hint that their grandfather may have missed a chance to redeem the gaki, but they don't know how.

You mention you're modeling the gaki on Shoju, who became a gaki of Courage--but of course, Courage is a more uniformly valued and positive emotion in Rokugan than Love. Courage is right there in the code of Bushido! Love has kind of a mixed track record by comparison.

Trufax. Though I've painted this version of the setting as having a bit more of a tradition of "and then these two lovers made it work out." (After all, the Dragon Clan is more tolerant of that sort of thing, and they're the ones running the show in this AU.)

If the gaki is the soul of some poor wight who was either starved of or greedy for love in their lifetime, it might not have an entirely balanced, healthy, or socially acceptable concept of love (not that those three things are necessarily fully compatible in Rokugan in any case!). If its ecological niche once it gets back into Ningen-do is to batten on to someone strong in its preferred emotion and then stir its victim up to greater heights of love so it can feed, the PCs might well find it causing trouble, even if not on the same scale as, say, a shikko-gaki. A misguided love-gaki could in theory leave a trail of broken families, ruined careers, love suicides, and horrible poetry anywhere it roamed. But only the most perceptive of spiritual experts would be able to say for sure whether/how much the mess was caused by the gaki rather than just being an existing situation that it was naturally drawn to.

Mmmmm, interesting. I haven't yet put in place anything for what the gaki's been doing; it was banished by the shugenja the grandfather was protecting, which in strict mechanical terms doesn't mean it would have to vanish for two whole generations, but whatever. It could easily come back into Ningen-do around now, though, since the metaplot involves the bad guys weakening the barriers between the realms. So the PCs could definitely wander into a place where it's caused total chaos.

A love gaki could also easily attract and/or fall in with a bad crowd of other gaki that feed on related but less savory emotions--lust, fear, rage, dominance, greed, etc. (It would probably be the hungry runt of such a pack, poor thing! But it could get by.) Your PCs could encounter it in that context--in which case it might well change sides and help the love-filled members of the party defend against its fellow gaki, confusing the heck out of everyone. No honor among hungry ghosts, after all. Oooh! Maybe the gaki pitching in to strengthen a defensive effort could fill in that last piece of inspiration for the new Guard kata. Unless that's too inside-out, I don't know.

. . . ima come back and read that when I'm functioning on more than four non-consecutive hours of sleep. <lol> It's an interesting prospect, but I *really* don't have the brain cells right now to ponder that inside-out of a scenario!

If your players know what kind of gaki it is, I'm tickled by the idea of Enso trapping it when they meet it in hopes it will eat away his inconvenient feelings only to have the opposite occur.

Heck, all he has to do is encounter it in a context where he realizes what its nature is, but *doesn't* realize that it's the gaki Kazu's been talking about. Though I can already hear the exorcist PC yelling "WHAT MADE YOU THINK BUDDYING UP TO A GAKI AND NOT TELLING US WAS A GOOD IDEA," so maybe it would be better not to go down a path that will justify her ire quite so thoroughly. <lol>

Either way, from the way you've described Enso in this and other threads, it might be plausible that having saddled himself with a spirit that makes him fall even harder for his charge, he'd try to bleed off his feelings in self-destructive ways--channeling "caring too much" into anger or violence against others, pursuing a dishonorable affair with a third party just to prove his unworthiness as an object of anybody's affection, etc. etc.

I've contemplated this, but in the long run, I think it would be too much of a backslide for him. He's already gone through the self-destructive alcoholism and the treating Rei with disdain and anger and the flinging himself into situations that might get him killed; the third-party affair is about the only bad thing he hasn't tried, and at this stage I think it would be a little too inexcusable, especially since he's genuinely trying to learn how to be honorable. (He knows how to *fake* being honorable -- the Perceived Honor advantage -- and we've been making story out of him trying to figure out how to behave in that fashion without feeling like it's just an empty performance. And he's approaching the level of Honor where he'll start to be bothered by the tension between "the honorable course of action is not to encourage Rei in his attachment by confessing your own feelings" and "the honorable course of action is to be honest about how you feel, instead of pretending you don't care." He isn't quite there yet, though.)

*a phrase my brain found oddly hilarious and which I now can't help picturing as the title/eponymous main character of a madcap anime... but anyway...

Oh dear god it's *true* . . . .

I feel like that's already a thing. I'll have to take a look and see if I can find what I'm thinking about when I'm not at work.

=======================

Here's a possible scenario: A shrine to Benten has recently been constructed in an unexpected location (conveniently near where your PCs are located). Apparently, her influence is particularly strong in the area, and couples who go there find their love for each other increased. The PCs go to investigate (or accidentally stumble onto) the shrine, and discover that, rather than the Fortune influencing the place, it is the Love Gaki . Do they inform others that the shrine is haunted by a Gaki, not blessed by Benten? Do they cover it up and allow worship of the Fortune to continue at the spot? Do they banish the Gaki, and tell noone?

Ooh, this is interesting. I'll put something up when I have anything to say, but for now I just have to compliment your creativity.

I slept on this and had a further thought or two today. Hope you don't mind the double barrage!

Ahhhh, good question; I should have clarified that in my initial post. They know the gaki Kazu saw in his vision was weird -- not a type anybody's been able to ID -- but they don't know yet what it was, exactly. One of the courses of action they could follow, but have held back on thus far, is to use Call the Spirit to summon the **** thing and examine it themselves. They've gotten a hint that their grandfather may have missed a chance to redeem the gaki, but they don't know how.

Aha, so that could set up a scenario in which they do recognize the gaki (I assume it's as monstrous-looking as any gaki, in its own distinctive way...), but they don't know enough to plan in advance how to deal with it or anticipate its actions. Best of both worlds, arguably.

I haven't yet put in place anything for what the gaki's been doing; it was banished by the shugenja the grandfather was protecting, which in strict mechanical terms doesn't mean it would have to vanish for two whole generations, but whatever. It could easily come back into Ningen-do around now, though, since the metaplot involves the bad guys weakening the barriers between the realms. So the PCs could definitely wander into a place where it's caused total chaos.

With all that going on in the larger plot, perhaps the PCs could wander into an area being plagued by a whole flock of different kinds of gaki that all leaked through together? Encountering that would bring the cousins' Cursed by Gaki-Do disadvantage conveniently to the front of everyone's minds. When you show them their nemesis-gaki flitting about in that situation, if they're anything like the groups I've played with, knowing it's unique and significant they may assume it's the Boss Monster masterminding all the trouble, which would be a fun bit of misdirection to play with. Even if/when they figure out that it's actually distressed, in its fashion, by the way the chaos caused by its peers is antithetical to love, they'll still have had a bit of time where they were seeing it as just another dangerous gaki, and perhaps they'll see, or have to solve, some problems it's caused. That perspective also might make their ancestor's fateful decision to banish it rather than take the risk of trying to redeem it seem all the more like a serious hard choice, rather than a cop-out lacking insight/courage.

Anyway, all that could lead to some kind of confrontation/battle with multiple gaki in which they have to defend against other gaki at the same time as they fight/trap/make an ally of/whatever their nemesis. Which would give everyone something to do whilst providing an opportunity for your bushi's kata to finally "click."

If you've already done a Spiral of Jerkness subplot for Enso, I definitely understand why you wouldn't want to reach for that card again. I had another vague idea after I read your last post, in which confronting or trapping the gaki would somehow give the character a vision of his own spiritual fate if he continues the path he's on now: simultaneously cutting off and starving for love himself, while denying love to the pining Reishin, he's in some danger of becoming (and/or possibly turning his erstwhile lover into) a very similar sort of Love Gaki after death if he doesn't shape up! Something like that could provide the moment of shock he and Reishin need to break their inhibitions and just have out with it.

The problem, of course, is that visions and revelations are internal and Enso's not a PC, so the players won't get much out of an interaction that all happens in his head. But maybe you could engineer a situation where everyone sees the same thing Enso experiences (even a simple dialogue in which the gaki reveals it was once like Enso, or like Reishin, in life?) or everyone and not just Enso sees the gaki their worst qualities might force them all to become if indulged, or whatever.

Here's a possible scenario: A shrine to Benten has recently been constructed in an unexpected location (conveniently near where your PCs are located). Apparently, her influence is particularly strong in the area, and couples who go there find their love for each other increased. The PCs go to investigate (or accidentally stumble onto) the shrine, and discover that, rather than the Fortune influencing the place, it is the Love Gaki . Do they inform others that the shrine is haunted by a Gaki, not blessed by Benten? Do they cover it up and allow worship of the Fortune to continue at the spot? Do they banish the Gaki, and tell noone?

Interesting theological puzzle: does a "love gaki" not, in fact, serve Benten in some fashion?

I slept on this and had a further thought or two today. Hope you don't mind the double barrage!

Not in the slightest! I still don't have a firm plan, so more input is very welcome.

With all that going on in the larger plot, perhaps the PCs could wander into an area being plagued by a whole flock of different kinds of gaki that all leaked through together?

I feel weirdly validated by the fact that people keep suggesting plots I've already run. <lol> During the Festival of the Moon's Wrath, the bad guys opened several portals to Gaki-do, so that Kyuden Bayushi was overrun with hungry ghosts (at a point in time where nobody was allowed to speak -- extra difficulty!) So they've done the "hordes of gaki" thing already.

That perspective also might make their ancestor's fateful decision to banish it rather than take the risk of trying to redeem it seem all the more like a serious hard choice, rather than a cop-out lacking insight/courage.

That's a very good point. Engineering this in a fashion where the grandfather maybe had a valid reason for not helping would make the story richer.

I had another vague idea after I read your last post, in which confronting or trapping the gaki would somehow give the character a vision of his own spiritual fate if he continues the path he's on now: simultaneously cutting off and starving for love himself, while denying love to the pining Reishin, he's in some danger of becoming (and/or possibly turning his erstwhile lover into) a very similar sort of Love Gaki after death if he doesn't shape up! Something like that could provide the moment of shock he and Reishin need to break their inhibitions and just have out with it.

Oh, that is a VERY good point. I liiiiiike that. :-D Yes, I think that is precisely the backstory of this gaki -- feelings denied to such a degree, or under such circumstances, that it was more destructive than confessing them would have been. (I have a whole theological argument for how sometimes resisting Desire means creating much larger problems with Regret.) I'll have to ponder the best way to externalize that aspect and weave it into the events, but this is a *fantastic* addition to the concept.

. . . huh. Vague temptation now to make three gaki, kind of like less evil versions of the Shuten Doji, one for each of the Three Sins. If I can think of some way to make gaki of Fear or Regret hook in especially well with other PCs, putting them all onstage might be great -- though no particular footholds suggest themselves, especially for Fear.