#taka-onna

[thecreaturecodex]

Taka-onna

Image © Matthew Meyer, accessed at Yokai.com here

[As Edo Japan had very strong gender roles, an obsession with sex and with policing it, it's not a surprise that brothel yokai are a whole subgenre. The last time I wrote one was the kerakera-onna way back during the original Year of Yokai, and my interpretation was much more sympathetic than the original. The taka-onna goes the other direction, from spooky-but-harmless into actively malicious. Baseless harassment campaigns have been on my mind lately; can't imagine why.

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Taka-onna CR 4 NE Undead This woman has grayish skin and snaggly teeth, but appears otherwise unremarkable until her torso extends, tripling her height.

Shame is a powerful emotion, and women that die in the throes of deep shame may rise as a taka-onna. Having felt small in life, they can grow to great heights in their unlife, and use this ability primarily to peer through windows and over walls to watch people. They haunt bars, brothels, gambling halls and other places where vice and secrets go hand in hand. This voyeurism is not just to indulge the taka-onna’s curiosity—a taka-onna ferrets out dirty secrets in order to inflict shame on others. The initial shock and disgust at having been found out is only the first course to a banquet of shame, as the taka-onna then goes on to share what they’ve learned while disguised as a mundane person. A victim’s life can fall apart rapidly and dramatically upon having their hidden lusts and fears revealed. And if a taka-onna chooses a victim who hasn’t actually done anything wrong? Then she makes something up and spreads rumors about it anyway.

Taka-onna have sharp teeth and nails, but their strongest weapon is shame itself. Those that meet a taka-onna’s eyes can have their deepest shame magnified in their mind, reliving it for hours and leaving them distracted and flailing. Taka-onna typically use their look of shame against the strongest-looking combatant, then flee, using their ability to extend and contract their bodies to clamber over rooftops and walls. Taka-onna are much more likely to stay and fight if they’re in groups, and more than one poor fool has attempted to pickpocket from a gaggle of gossiping women only to be torn to pieces by a gang of taka-onna in disguise.

Taka-onna remember their lives before undeath, and often make their still-living enemies their first choice of victims. If a taka-onna has a fondness for a living friend or relative, that manifests even more cruelly—a taka-onna will often harass them to the point of suicide, hoping that they die with sufficient shame to rise as a taka-onna themselves. Many taka-onna go out of their way to seek out others of their own kind, giving them a perfect opportunity to vent their grudges and stoke each other’s bitterness. In groups, taka-onna are more likely to dream big, turning their individual inflicting of weaponized shame into harassment campaigns that can take over whole communities. The form of undeath that creates a taka-onna manifests most frequently among those who suffer prejudice from the society where they live. Unfortunately, this does not make them any more sympathetic to the living victims of prejudice, instead seeing them as a pool of victims about whom revealing secrets and spreading scurrilous rumors are likely to do more damage. Male taka-onna, called taka-otoko, are also possible and more common than taka-onna in certain societies.

Taka-onna CR 4 XP 1,200 NE Medium undead Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +9 Defense AC 17, touch 13, flat-footed 14 (+2 Dex, +1 dodge, +4 natural) hp 39 (6d8+12) Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +6 Immune undead traits; SR 19 (divinations only) Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee bite +6 (1d4+2), 2 claws +6 (1d4+2) Special Attacks look of shame Spell-like Abilities CL 4th, concentration +6 Constant—nondetection (self only) 3/day—detect anxieties (DC 14), paranoia (DC 14), rumormonger Statistics Str 14, Dex 15, Con -, Int 13, Wis 13, Cha 14 Base Atk +4; CMB +6; CMD 19 Feats Deceitful, Dodge, Lightning Reflexes, Lunge (B) Skills Bluff +9, Diplomacy +7, Disguise +12, Intimidate +10, Perception +9, Stealth +10 Languages Common, Necril SQ extensible body Ecology Environment urban Organization solitary or clutch (2-6) Treasure standard Special Abilities Extensible Body (Su) A taka-onna can extend her body up to a height of fifteen feet. This allows her to climb obstacles of 15 feet or lower without making Climb checks, as she can pull herself up or down them easily; a taka onna treats these obstacles as difficult terrain. She also gains Lunge as a bonus feat, and can choose to grant herself an additional 5 feet of reach in exchange for an additional -2 to AC. Look of Shame (Su) As a standard action, a taka-onna can look into a creature’s eyes within 30 feet to inflict deep shame on them. A creature targeted can resist this effect with a successful DC 15 Will save, and can avert its eyes as if this was a gaze attack. A creature that fails its save suffers a -2 penalty to attack rolls, saving throws and any skill or ability checks that rely on Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma for 6 hours. During that time, any time it rolls a 1 on an attack roll, saving throw, skill or ability check, it becomes overwhelmed with shame and is dazed for 1 round. A creature that succeeds this save cannot be affected by that taka-onna’s look of shame for the next 24 hours. This is an emotion, mind-influencing effect, and the save DC is Charisma based.

[lpbestiary]

The Taka-onna is a yōkai from Japanese folklore. Also known as "the tall woman," she appears as a woman with a grotesquely elongated body. She is said to haunt brothels, often scaring those on the second floor by appearing outside the window. Sometimes, women who were shunned by men because of their appearance were said to become Taka-onna.

The Taka-onna rose to prominence in 2016, when a statue representing the yōkai in the city of Gobō was removed from its base and dumped in the harbour.

Image source.

Monster master list.

Suggest a spook.

[myth-lord]

Name: Rokurokubi

Alternate Names: Long-Necked Woman, Taka-Onna (related), Nukekubi (related)

Mythology: Japanese Mythology (Yokai)

Size: Medium, but their neck can stretch to enormous lengths    

Environment: Urban, or living by themselves in cabins in the woods

In Mythika: While Rokurokubi often fake being some elderly lady or beautiful women living by herself out in the woods, this veil often ends when she is alone with her victim, then these vile hags show their true colors and use their endless-snake like necks to constrict their (mostly) male prey with or crush their bones. While Rokurokubi look like weak human women, they are one of the most powerful hags around, their strength is like a rhinoceros and their flexible necks have the power of ten Anaconda’s. They are often seen as the ultimate Hags, the most powerful of them all.

Taka-Onna are even more powerful Rokurokubi that have learned to use their entire body as weapon, they can stretch every part of their body, creating long arms, legs, torso, fingers, tongues or necks, everything is possible with these elastic-looking horrors. No place is safe from these terrifying hags as they can fit through the most impossible spaces, with their flexible bodies they are a one-person army, giving even the entire guard of a village a hard time.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rokurokubi

[blakehertel14]

A good death is its own reward.

[tattoonicorn]

Taka-onna appear as ordinary, homely human women most of the time, but they have the power to elongate their bodies and grow to several meters in height. Like other brothel yokai, they are rarely seen outside of brothels and red light districts. They are fairly common yokai nonetheless. Sightings of these yokai peaked during the Edo period and continued up to the post-war period, when brothels and “pleasure districts” were at their height in Japan.

Taka-onna are frequently spotted peering into the 2nd-story windows of brothels and homes where romantic liaisons are taking place. Their activities are generally limited to peeping into second floor windows. Though they rarely attack humans physically, taka-onna do enjoy scaring and harassing both men and women who frequent the pleasure districts, jealous of the physical pleasure they were never able to know in life. They were originally ordinary women who were too unattractive to marry (or to find work in the red light districts which they haunt). Through jealousy, they became twisted and corrupted, and transformed into ugly, malicious monsters who prey on others’ sexual energy. 

Taka-onna encounters were often the subject of bawdy anecdotes, as they generally revolve around trips to the pleasure districts. In one account, though, a woodcutter describes how he discovered that his own wife was a taka-onna. His child mysteriously disappeared one day, and over a short period his servants also began to disappear one by one. Unable to figure out what was happening, the woodcutter began to investigate his wife. One night while pretending to sleep in bed, he witnessed his wife jump into a well and then elongate her body and climb back out. He leapt out of bed and fled into the mountains, never to return.

[askabitchygoddess]

Sai: *doing a fake yawn, she stares into Seiji's eyes* Jubokko/Jyubokko.

 ”Correct again. Man, I really need to come up with harder ones…

How’s this?

 There’s no point pulling down the blinds or locking your doors on the second floor and above. I can see you doing the nasty~! How? I just s-t-r-e-t-c-h really high. Ohohoho~♥

What am I, besides lewd?”

[deitiesdaily]

July 9th, 2013 - Taka-Onna

Ah, the final day of Yokai Week. I'm sort of sad to see it go, honestly...I really enjoy these guys. But giving other figures the spotlight is important too! Anyway, we'll be closing out the week with the Taka-Onna, one of the first traditionally female yokai I've talked about in a while...so let's begin!

Like a lot of yokai, the Taka-Onna's name is a good indicator as to what sort of abilities they have, and the roles they serve in spooking people. Here, we have a combination of two words: "taka" and "onna", which when put together, translate to "tall woman". This fits perfectly with the yokai, as the Taka-Onna is described as a woman who possesses the ability to grow taller by stretching the lower part of her body up to several meters. According to some sources, the Taka-Onna could stretch other parts of her body as well, such as her arms and neck.

These yokai were once human women, who, because they were considered unattractive, never had any sort of male companionship. Women who became obsessively jealous of other women more fortunate than they were would eventually become twisted, corrupt individuals who transformed into Taka-Onna, becoming ugly and cruel.

In order to get back at those who had caused them such misfortune, the Taka-Onna would haunt brothels and red light districts, peeping into windows to scare and harass both men and women who engaged in sexual activity. Some say that the Taka-Onna even preyed on these sexual energies. However, her activities are not just limited to spying in on couples: the Taka-Onna appears as a normal human being most of the time, and some have been known to simply intrude on those having sex.

Luckily, there's even some folklore to go along with this yokai! Our story begins in the Wakayama prefecture with a woodcutter/farmer named Kijishi. Now Kijishi was not a poor man; in fact he was very wealthy, and after he married and had a kid, he went and hired himself a servant. However, when the child turned five years old, he mysteriously disappeared...followed by the servant shortly after. So Kijishi hired another servant. But, when that when disappeared, he hired yet another servant. And another...and another...and another. He went through about 30 in all. This is where some different variations of the story branch, but because they're pretty minor, I'll go ahead and explain each one.

In the first, after about 15 servants, a medium shows up to help Kijishi out, and although Kijishi is pretty nonchalant about the medium being there to keep watch, his wife is pretty nervous about them being there; in fact, she was very scared. Becoming suspicious, Kijishi decided he would pretend to have a fever and go to bed ill; but of course he was only pretending. But while he was in bed, he heard a voice that said "When your wife changes her appearance, escape to the mountains. Run!" or something to that extent. Sure enough, soon after the warning was given, Kijishi's wife revealed herself to be a Taka-Onna by growing two meters in length. Shocked and scared, Kijishi ran off to the mountains as he had been instructed, and never came back. In other versions of the story, there's no medium at all and Kijishi goes through 30 servants rather than 15. However, he does still pretend to be ill to spy on his wife, but instead sees her climb into a well only for her to grow taller and climb back out. There's another branch here. In one story, Kijishi is the one who runs off to the mountains, but in another, its his wife that makes the escape. Either way, the main hook is that it was his wife who had been eating the servants, as well as their child.

Of course, it should also be noted that Taka-Onna were said to rarely appear anywhere else besides in redlight districts and near brothels. In fact, here, they were quite common. But even in places that weren't redlight districts and the like, they were still notorious for peeking in on the second floors of buildings.

[pamandjapan-blog]

高女 (Tall Woman)

Taka-Onna is a female monster who stretches itself to peer into the second story of a house.