Ki-Onna

Name: Ki-Onna

Faction: Evil

Species: Tree Spirit (youkai)

Gender: Presents itself as female

Age: 1000+ years

Appearance: Varies slightly. Its "avatar" generally presents itself as a Japanese woman who borders on exaggeratedly attractive, as if to intentionally draw sexual attention. The avatar will always appear in a tight, low cut, silk dress which ends just above the knee. The color of the dress, the color and exact style of her hair, and her exact facial features vary from person to person. Her hairstyle is usually seen as reaching down to its upper arm. Most who know about magic will mistake the avatar for a succubus.

Its true form is a large fig tree, located somewhere in a forest in Japan. The tree does not grow actual figs, but human heads. The heads are still alive and capable of speech, but are usually too busy screaming or crying to do so.

Personality: The avatar generally presents itself as a very voluptuous person. This is an intentional guise, attempting to use sexuality to lure in prey. The avatar's actual personality is highly violent and sadistic. It has been known to prolong kills to torture its victims, and on rare occasions, allow them to escape just to hunt them down again.

History: Ki-Onna's main tree body has long resided in a forest somewhere in northeastern Japan, referred to for hundreds of years as Zanshu Hito no Mori (斬首人の森) "The Forest of Beheaded Men". The spirit was greatly feared by the nearby villages in the past. Since modern times, belief in the monster has fallen off, but superstitions involving it and the forest remain, to the degree that nobody has brave enough to find out if it actually exists. Because its usual hunting grounds are largely undisturbed, its avatar now travels the country seeking prey. It's been found traveling as far as South Africa to hunt.

Skills: The avatar is an excellent actor and a master of disguise. On a completely unrelated subject, the avatar also has an affinity for botany and for some reason seems to like both chocolate and card games.

Magic: Ki-Onna's magic centers around illusions. Nobody is quite sure if the avatar actually exists physically, but most consider it safe to assume it does. The avatar is capable of disguising itself as any of its prey and also gains all of their memories by preying on them.

Ki-Onna hunts by luring people in, mostly men with its highly sexual guises, but also hunts others, such as lost travelers. Once it has a victim, it typically holds them down and begins strangling them. It also typically stops its attack to prevent the victim from dying, sometimes letting them go just to catch them again. It prolongs this as long as it remains entertained, then it begins feeding. It strangles one more time, this time pulling until the head is removed. Once it is, the avatar's jaw unhinges and it swallows the head whole in the brief, few-second window before they die.

The victim's head will later be found growing on the tree body's branches, as if it were fruit. The victim remains alive and mostly conscious if their head was devoured before death, only being killed if it is crushed or if it falls off the branches. The victim's body will also remain alive and wander aimlessly until the victim is killed by outside means. The large number of headless bodies wandering the woods is how the creature's home gained its name. According to legend, if one of the fruit heads are devoured, the consumer will gain all the memories of the victim.