Spirit shrines of Kumonosu
Find a shrine, do what the spirit asks, eat what it offers, and learn what it knew. Roll here, or use the tables below with ordinary dice.
Roll to find a shrine. The generator remembers the last five spirits met in each element and never repeats one of them.
How a roll works
- Element, d8. 1–7 is an element. 8 is an abandoned shrine with no spirit: roll the d8 again for the element it once held (reroll an 8), then use the abandoned steps.
- Tier, d4. 1 is a greater spirit. 2–4 is a lesser spirit.
- Greater spirit, d6 on that element’s table. It brings its own shrine, task, and two pieces. The seeker may eat only one, and the piece decides the spell.
- Lesser spirit, d8 form and d8 nature. Its name is the form root followed by the nature root, head first. The form gives the piece, the nature gives the task and the spell, and the element shapes the spell.
- The no-repeat rule. Keep a list of the last five spirits met in each element. If a roll gives a spirit on that list, step down one row and wrap from the bottom to the top. For a greater spirit, step the d6. For a lesser spirit, keep the form and step the nature. Repeat until the spirit is new.
- Shrine. A greater spirit’s shrine is fixed. For a lesser spirit, roll structure (d8) and element dressing (d4). Then roll condition (d4) and what was left there (d8) for every shrine.
- The catch, d20, for every bargain. Every bargain with a spirit is a contract, and contracts in Kumonosu are disputable.
Why the rule exists: without it, the same spirit turns up twice within five rolls in one element about 18% of the time (simulated over 400,000 runs). With it, never. Six greater spirits is the smallest number that makes the rule always work: five are remembered, so at least one is always free.
Element (d8)
Greater spirits (d6 per element)
The seeker is offered both pieces and may eat one. The names take the name mark: thick side bars on the first logo.
Lesser spirits
A lesser spirit is named form first, then nature: a devouring spider is mokuako. The same name in another element is a different spirit, so give the element when it matters: mokuako no sa.
Form (d8): what it is, and the piece it gives
Nature (d8): what it wants, and the spell it teaches
Words in braces come from the element table below.
Element words for lesser spells
Shrines
Structure (d8), lesser and abandoned shrines
Element dressing (d4)
Condition (d4), every shrine
Left at the shrine (d8), every shrine
What became of it (d6), abandoned shrines
The catch (d20)
Every shrine bargain is a contract between the seeker and a spirit, so every one can be argued. 19 and 20 are clean.
New words
Three new roots, plus every spirit name, built head first from existing roots. Each name was checked against the syllable shapes, the eight final consonants, and the ban on Su.
Boards these names create
- uo (fish) is two vowels. Written as two logos, u·o, like mi·a·ko. As a native VV syllable it could also be one spun logo.
- porusa: “fire bird”, or -sa as the intensifier, “an intense bird”.
- porutochisa: “three-legged bird”, or “bird with legs of fire”.
- washukinyoshu: joined, a host of eyes. Cut, washuki nyoshu is exactly 512 eyes.
- nyarjiku and nyaryobi: nyar is both “plant” and “green”.
- kuge as a form is both “hedgehog” and “shadow”, so every kuge- lesser spirit can be read as a shadow spirit.
- The lesser spirit mokuha (wandering spider) has the same shape as the core word mokuha, game or play.
- saritch is drawn from the soot sprite, whose borrowed name, susuwatari, carries su twice. Saying the foreign name aloud is a capital offense.