Gaki
From L5r: Legend of the Five Rings
Gaki are a form of undead that are created when humans die, having lived lives of selfishness or dishonor, and are cursed to an existance in Gaki-do, the realm of the hungry dead. Also called hungry ghosts, they are spirits agonized by a constant need which they crave and try to satisfy--though they never can. The hunger drives them mad. Exposed to the taint of Jigoku due to the proximity of the two realms, many gaki suffer horrible mutations often resulting in strange insectoid characteristics. There are many specific kinds of gaki which have been categorized, though quite often unique gaki are encountered as well.
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[edit] Skull Tide Gaki
Composed of the souls of drowned sailors, the Skull Tide Gaki manifests itself as a mass of chattering skulls, attacking ships by biting the hull and tossing the ship about by their sheer number. Those sailors who fall overboard are ripped and torn in the jaws of the many skulls of the gaki, their tormented souls joining the hungry undead host.
[edit] Shikko-gaki
The spirits of those punished for the defilement of graves are cursed with a terrible hunger for dead flesh, becoming hulking primative creatures that skulk in graveyards eating corpses.
[edit] Kwaku-shin-gaki
Those who were guilty of allowing the destitute to freeze in winter storms, unwilling to impart of their substance out of greed or meanspiritedness sometimes are punished to wander the world as these gaki, their lower bodies turned into flaming cauldron-shaped braziers--their upper bodies scorched continually by the blazing fires, but driven nonetheless to gather fuel for their continued torment.
[edit] Gakimushi
Those who lived lives of utter mindless slaughter are condemned to short unlives as horrible rampaging insect monsters like mutated ant-lions, stinging and ripping apart everone in their wake until their tortured existance can be brought to an end by a large and skilled enough group of bushi.
[edit] References
- CoR pp. 23-25
