Like many people, each October I participate in my own version of the Promptober trend. But instead of art, I spend the month creating new homebrew for D&D; a full 31 days worth of it. I try to change it up each year, and in 2022 I did Arcanatober, with 31 days of magic items, spells, and monsters themed around the major aracan of the taro deck. This year, I'm going all-in on monsters, with Yokaitober, a celebration of yokai from Japanese folklore and mythology.
Yoaki are something I've had an interest in for many, many years, and I thought it might be fun to put that knowledge to use, as well as give myself an excuse to research even more of them. So while I'm making a post every day over on Patreon, every 3 or 4 days I'll gather the results and post an update here, free for everyone to read and use in their own 5e adventures at home.
The first four days, I wrote about the hahikigami, a living broom made from a tool for cleaning shrines; the amabiko, a three-legged monkey creature who likes to give medical advice; the hanzaki, a real-life giant salamander who just happens to have a yokai counterpart; and the mikoshi nyudo, a priest who's infinitely growing neck is designed to make you just dizzy enough that it can try to eat yours.
This will be my shop’s freebie sticker for the next couple of months! <3 I’m trying to be more on top of that kinda thing this year. Just waiting for them to arrive and then they’ll start going out in orders!
Amabie cardboard sculpture, by artist Odaka Masaki
Amabie is a prophetic youkai though to appear during epidemies. As for the akae, Edo period people used prints depicting this strange monster as amulets to ward off diseases and evil.
The amabie is a yōkai in Japanese folklore. A type of mermaid, it has been depicted in many different ways including as a cephalopod, an ape-like creature and a bird. It is ususally shown with three legs.
The amabie comes from the sea and tell of upcoming catastrophies, including famine and sickness. Showing a picture of the amabie to someone who has fallen ill is said to cure them. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, a trend of sharing art of the yōkai spread on Twitter in Japan.
[Those of you paying attention to social media and monsters in the last couple of weeks may have seen an awful lot of this girl around. The amabie is one of several yokai luck charms from 19th century Japan, and is specifically invoked to protect against epidemics. Seems relevant right now. She’s probably a variant of the amabiko, which has a similar MO and three legged appearance, but has gotten a lot more attention. People like mermaids more than monkeys, I guess. I’ve included the amabiko below as a variant.
The stuff about her being luminous comes from the original, but I extrapolated that into a beam attack in order to give the amabie some sort of combat capacity. There are cuter amabie illustrations out there, and more humanoid ones (including one by the above artist) but I like a spookier, more alien looking version.]
Amabie
CR 6 LG Aberration
This strange creature has a beaked fishes’ head with intelligent eyes, fin-like ears and long flowing hair. Its lower body is divided into three tails of equal length.
An amabie is a benevolent creature whose very presence wards off sickness. They are often seen in times of epidemics in coastal areas, hoping to save the lives of the innocent from the cost of plagues. They are bioluminescent, and creatures illuminated by their light find themselves protected against disease. What’s more, they can project their consciousness into images of themselves and provide this protection at a distance. As such, images of an amabie are seen as being good luck and prophylactic against disease. An amabie living in the water periodically enters a magical torpor to monitor the presence of these images, and provide some soothing and comfort to those near them. They rarely leave the water outside of appearing in images—they cannot survive far from shore.
What society the amabie have is primarily devoted to service towards others, and they are a beloved sight among many species of aquatic and coastal humanoids. Every amabie is a dedicated foe to evil gods of death and disease, and work to scatter their cults. Amabies are not strong physical combatants, but they can fight with their beaks and tail slaps. They can focus their radiance into beams of freezing fire, and these illuminate those struck with a similar glow. Their greatest strength is possibly their alliances—many creatures of different types will come together and rally behind an amabie on a crusade against evil. All amabie are female—the males are decidedly different in physical appearance, and referred to as amabiko (see below).
Amabiko
Male amabie, known as amabiko, are somewhat ape-like in countenance, with short muzzles instead of beaks, fur covering their entire bodies, and three clawed limbs in place of tails. An amabiko has the same statistics as an amabie, except that they have a movement speed of 30 feet, swim 20 feet, 3 claw attacks that deal 1d6 damage instead of tail slaps and lack the luminous and coldfire beam abilities. An amabiko has the amphibious special quality instead of water dependency. Replace the Multiattack feat with Weapon Finesse. An amabiko is a CR 6 creature.
Amabie CR 6
XP 2,400
LG Medium aberration (aquatic)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Perception +15
Aura health (50 ft.)Defense
AC 19, touch 14, flat-footed 15 (+4 Dex, +5 natural)
hp 73 (7d8+40)
Fort +7, Ref +6, Will +9
Immune disease, nauseated, sickened
Offense
Speed 15 ft., swim 40 ft.
Melee bite +7 (1d6+2), 3 tail slaps +5 (1d4+1)
Ranged coldfire beam +9 touch (3d6 cold and 3d6 electricity)
Spell-like Abilities CL 7th, concentration +10
3/day—improved enter image, lesser restoration, remove disease
1/day—divination
Statistics
Str 14, Dex 18, Con 20, Int 15, Wis 17, Cha 17
Base Atk +5; CMB +7; CMD 21 (23 vs. trip)
Feats Alertness, Multiattack, Self-Sufficient, Toughness
Skills Diplomacy +10, Escape Artist +14, Heal +12, Perception +15, Sense Motive +15, Survival +15, Swim +10
Languages Aquan, Common
SQ luminous, water dependency
Ecology
Environment any aquatic and coastal
Organization solitary or pair
Treasure standard
Special Abilities
Aura of Health (Su) All creatures in a fifty foot radius of an amabie gain a +4 sacred bonus on all saves against diseases or spells and abilities that cause the sickened or nauseated condition.
Coldfire Beam (Su) As a standard action, an amabie can fire a ray as a ranged touch attack with a range of 120 feet and no range increment. A creature struck by this beam takes 3d6 points of cold damage and 3d6 points of electricity damage, and is limned with radiance as if by a faerie fire spell for 1 minute.
Improved Enter Image (Sp) This functions as the enter image spell, except that it has a range of 1 mile per caster level, and the amabie can use her aura of health ability through any image she enters. This is the equivalent of a 4th level spell.
Luminous (Ex) An amabie naturally sheds light as a candle. At will as a standard action, she can extinguish this illumination or increase it to that of a torch.
