My writing today leads me about as far eastward as I've ever been, to the coastline of Zehou facing the eastern ocean of the Tranquil Deep. While out there, I chanced to meet a particularly dark, yet respected presence amongst that pantheon, the "Mother of Yokai" herself, Kegare-No-Bakemono.

Mortals of Zehou speak about this ancient nine-tailed fox spirit with the same hushed fear and reverence that westerners speak of with high ranking demons, because for their belief system she fills a similar niche to the archdevils as a punisher of mortal sin, hunting down wicked souls and subjecting them to a fate none of them wished to talk about.

Her moniker bears a bit of explanation of course. She's not THE source of Yokai on Vakkert Sedd, however she is the being that rules over them, and much like the demons I interact with on a semi-regular basis from the Rings of Hell, she steers the more hostile, mortal-tormenting Yokai to only harass and torment "deserving" mortals whose weight of sins have or are close to damning them to her pantheon's own hell. As being a Yokai isn't mutually exclusive with being a divinity, finding a place for her people to fit an acceptable cosmic niche saw to her ascension as a "dark goddess" who represents negative karma and punisher of the damned.

When I met her, it was a surprisingly affable meeting. She carried a reserved and noble air about her as she welcomed me to her home, a large valley nestled between two pairs of mountain ranges, untouchable by those who couldn't fly or go through the only single mountain entry pass. Having heard talk from the mortals of the region refer to her in hushed terror as "evil" I was more pleasantly surprised than anything at how warm she was to me as she showed me around her temple and the city below it in the valley proper, a place inhabited by all manner of eastern demon, cryptid and monster as well as mortal followers who worshipped her sphere of karmic punishment. While she was kind to me, she held this reserved air about her, but once she started to interact with her Yokai and her followers, any degree of frost left in her demeanor melted away and she became doting and affectionate, showing me that Mother was as much because of how deep her love went for those under her protection, be they Yokai or mortal.

But that didn't last long, and I was soon brought to her temple where she offered to show me why exactly she was feared by mortals.

The mood changed quickly as I saw her grab a large paintbrush off the wall and approach a wolf who was bound in rope and looked properly terrified, her demeanor changing from motherly warmth to a cruel chill as her tails unfurled and began to trace a circle in the floor around her, magicked ink from her tail tips leaving markings on the floor until it had drawn a magical seal all around her. She declared the mortal a sinner before taking the paintbrush in hand and using it to pin the mortal to the floor with force. I heard her speak to him and I understood why she was so greatly feared. "Mortal who lived a damnable life, to me you are now bound." She said, before running her brush along his chin, causing part of his soul to exit from his mouth, which she promptly leaned in and tore a chunk out of and then swallowed, creating a perverse spiritual bond that unsettled me - the two were now connected as a god and their worshippers would be, but by force.

"Impudent mortal. I see the weight of the sins that burden your soul. I offer you a chance for redemption by walking with us and serving our purposes." She said with a grin sadistic enough to make me realize she enjoyed this part, before she began to draw with ink over the man's body, each brush stroke changing his form, twisting and warping it until he looked entirely different, somewhat like a hellhound I'd know, but different in enough ways to tell me it was something else. But most jarring was how 'fake' it looked, it looked more like an animated painting than it did a proper living creature, Yokai or not. She spoke that this mortal let his wrath guide him, this he would be Inugami, who seeks to bestow a blessing upon people seeking revenge to aid their quest. She had cursed the man and transformed him into a Yokai - and I understood the true meaning of her moniker at that moment.

She told me as she began to write a talisman that the man was now an "Ink-Cursed", a mortal transformed into a Yokai and who would be forced to serve out that Yokai's niche in the spiritual ecosystem if they wished to be freed. While Yokai could overcome their instinct to more or less live as your normal people, an Ink-Cursed was forced to follow their instinctual drive, which made them particularly more dangerous as well. As leverage, she would devour a portion of their soul to create a link between them so they couldn't simply run and hide out the rest of their days; they would need to interact with the conditions of the curse one way or another. After writing the conditions of the man's freedom, she slapped the talisman onto his head and waved her brush, casting him away into the wider world.

She told me that she had contracts for every Yokai she saw fit to curse mortals into; in the case of people she turned into Inugami, they would only be freed if the bid for vengeance they supported was "warranted", paying evil unto evil, vengeance unto a murderer or some similarly damned mortal soul, and then she would release the consumed chunk of their soul and they would return to normal. But in her tone I sensed some degree of hope and I made sure to ask about it and received a smile that was disarmingly warm after how coldly she had ripped away a piece of a man's spirit and condemned them to live as a spirit of revenge.

She added that her contracts always had a second and hidden condition and she was curious if this man would be one of the ones who learned it. In the case of that man, she told me that yes, helping a mortal take revenge would free him of his Ink-Cursed form, but it wouldn't balance out his karma - it was simply using him to slay another damned soul. But using their new ability to sense a mortal's desire for revenge meant they could gather a sense for if that revenge was truly warranted or just a pretty grudge - if it wasn't and they talked the mortal out of their quest, not only would the curse be broken, but the cursed mortal's soul would be cleansed of enough sin they could potentially find their way to heaven. As a bonus, for impressing her so genuinely, she would extend divine protection on them to make sure the rest of their life is long and prosperous - so long as they didn't relapse. It was like that for all of her contracts - a hidden lesson to be learned that would balance them out and bring them peace by bringing peace to another suffering, sinful mortal.

She did seem dismissive of the idea though, mentioning that for as long as she's been around, it was the exception, not the rule, for kindness to win out and people to realize the hidden lesson her curses tried to teach, but if they didn't, then oh well. She told me that the man was also on a time limit with the nature of the curse - right now he looked like a living black and white painting, but over time the rough edges and the sketchy look would fade, and color would begin to bleed in, making him look more and more "natural", and once his body looked entirely like a naturally-born Yokai, the curse was unbreakable, and that would be his new existence until the day he died, though if he learned his lesson after it was too late, she would still be happy to take him in.

Good and Evil eventually blend in strange ways when you hold connections to the afterlives like I do. Objectively, all of the things that she did to mortals was incredibly evil; cursing them into new bodies with a tight condition before it was irreversible, forcing them to be bound to her by devouring a chunk of their soul, and hiding the actual conditions for their redemption to see if they figure it out themselves, otherwise they just did her dirty work while still being damned. At the same time, like with the demons I interact with, she was very, very strict about only doing it to mortals who could be considered evil themselves (at least in the fashion of CURSING them, she did mention, with motherly warmth returning, that she had plenty of Yokai who were once mortal who requested she transform them willingly) adds a buffer that makes it 'right'- cruel and callous, but right, as far as the higher powers were concerned.

I did have to ask, and she told me that she only transformed people into fellow Kitsune if they were her loyal mortal worshippers, or as a sign of her favor towards Ink-Cursed who broke their curse with the hidden, redeeming contract she mentioned earlier and asked it of her. Of course, she IS an actual mother as well, so some of those Kitsune are biproducts of her and people she's loved enough to give the honor of creating new life with her.

Though I wanted to stay and talk philosophy with her more and ask about her past and how she became what she did, I needed to be on my way to other business I had planned. I do want to come back again to see what this mother of monsters is like in her everyday life without having to change tact midway through because she had to do her job, so I'll try to gather a bit more of a sense for her later. As is, this log is already long and rambly enough in just describing my experience.

- Veluren Thanazel, the Sights and People of Vakkert Sedd.

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Phew, another new character, with lots more lore.

This character started as a pokefusion between an Alolan Ninetails and a Delphox (one of my personal top 5) and evolved into a Pokemon-inspired kitsune character with Ink Mage properties. A leader among Yokai and a godly being who both loves and cares for the demons of the east, while cursing wicked mortals into being Yokai themselves with her (nakedly Okami-inspired) Infernal Brush techniques.

She's definitely among the more "Lawful evil" of my cast, since she tends to look down and think worse of mortals while very eagerly delivering her punishment onto the ones who deserve such a grim justice, but that doesn't mean she's without positive qualities, as she happily sees other divinities and demons as her equals, and is extremely motherly and doting towards Yokai (be they natural-born or Ink-Cursed who failed to break the curse, but still learned their lesson) and the mortal followers who worship her.

Really a big fan of that mom-bod, it's fun to get characters that are more portly and thick out there for sure, I'm so pleased with this.

Also, I'd like to point out my Toyhouse below - she had a lot more things about her that I wasn't able to quite cover in the breadth of this story because it wasn't relevant to the setpiece of Vel talking to her, so if you enjoy reading my character's lore, definitely give it a peek.

Kegare-No-Bakemono belongs to me!

Artwork is by  Cori