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<blockquote data-quote="Aberzanzorax" data-source="post: 4807970" data-attributes="member: 64209">The following is a collection of my remembering and (more likely, misremembering) various bits of Oni lore from oriental adventures 3e (and d20 legend of the 5 rings).&nbsp;&nbsp;Oni come into being out of an extreme desire...a sort of deal with a devil. They are wisps of negative emotions and raw, untapped power until given form.&nbsp;What gives them form? The desires of a mortal, who gives the oni created a name (and an envisioned form and purpose). The name is the name of a real person who has control over it (almost always the mortal with the strong emotions...but rarely an oni is called on behalf of another...e.g. a brother calling an oni for his wronged sister may give the oni his sister's name).&nbsp;The oni will seek, at first, to fulfil its purpose for the master. Over time, however, the purpose becomes all consuming. The vengeance Oni lives to revenge the tiniest slight (you cut me in line! VENGEANCE!). The betrayed lover oni will kill a man for even looking at any woman but his own wife...and so on. So it is that Oni quickly become consumed, each with its own particular type of extreme eccentricity. Their purpose utterly drives them to the point that the tiniest slight that negatively affects their purpose results in an extreme (and usually deadly) response.&nbsp;The problem is that usually, the master, whose name the oni has been given, inevitably commits the sin that they so hated (fickle and imperfect as humans, but not oni, are). When the master is killed, the oni is free to concoct schemes, becoming proactive (the betrayed lover sets up a brothel and kills married johns) rather than reactive. &nbsp;In any case, the oni's strength and capriciousness are also its undoing. They are so singleminded in their purpose that they are easily baited or discovered performing the same modus operandi again and again.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Aberzanzorax, post: 4807970, member: 64209"] The following is a collection of my remembering and (more likely, misremembering) various bits of Oni lore from oriental adventures 3e (and d20 legend of the 5 rings). Oni come into being out of an extreme desire...a sort of deal with a devil. They are wisps of negative emotions and raw, untapped power until given form. What gives them form? The desires of a mortal, who gives the oni created a name (and an envisioned form and purpose). The name is the name of a real person who has control over it (almost always the mortal with the strong emotions...but rarely an oni is called on behalf of another...e.g. a brother calling an oni for his wronged sister may give the oni his sister's name). The oni will seek, at first, to fulfil its purpose for the master. Over time, however, the purpose becomes all consuming. The vengeance Oni lives to revenge the tiniest slight (you cut me in line! VENGEANCE!). The betrayed lover oni will kill a man for even looking at any woman but his own wife...and so on. So it is that Oni quickly become consumed, each with its own particular type of extreme eccentricity. Their purpose utterly drives them to the point that the tiniest slight that negatively affects their purpose results in an extreme (and usually deadly) response. The problem is that usually, the master, whose name the oni has been given, inevitably commits the sin that they so hated (fickle and imperfect as humans, but not oni, are). When the master is killed, the oni is free to concoct schemes, becoming proactive (the betrayed lover sets up a brothel and kills married johns) rather than reactive. In any case, the oni's strength and capriciousness are also its undoing. They are so singleminded in their purpose that they are easily baited or discovered performing the same modus operandi again and again. [/QUOTE]

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