Nashiningenmi

[nakimono]

Said to be created by the demoness Kijo, the Nashiningenmi are a race of spider demons possessing the bodies of varies types of spiders with a human torso and head in place of a spider’s head. Created to be the top of the food chain, the Nashiningenmi are hunters of humans, elves, shade, undead, etc. and are thus large enough to manage that kind of hunting. Their spider bodies are enormous compared to spiders, most often the size of a horse, but they have a large range in size in shape as varied as actual spiders. In contrast, their human torso and head are smaller than the average human, as these parts are not essential in hunting except in the usage of weapons for those who choose to go that route; the human torso does include arms, given the Nashiningenmi ten limbs as opposed to merely eight.

Being demons and not merely just spiders or humans, the Nashiningenmi can be any solid color or combination of colors in existence, most taking on a solid dark hue or a majority of a dark hue with patches of bright color. The only constant thing is that the color of the spider body is always darker in color than the skin on the human torso, though both are of the same tint of color. As opposed to this wide variety of color, a Nashiningenmi’s hair can only be white, black, or some shade of gray in between. As far as their human bodies go, a Nashiningenmi will not physically age past an appearance of twenty years, though they are eternals who will live forever unless killed by any of many possible methods including disease, great falls, wounds, etc.

These demons bear many parallels in behavior with the spiders they resemble; they are hunters of varying methods, from ambush predators to stalkers, capable of either sitting upon their own web and waiting or venturing out and hunting. Just as in nature, where spider females are larger than and dominant towards males, the Nashiningenmi are a matriarchal society; females are always dominant to males, always more respected than males. Also like spiders, the Nashiningenmi are solitary creatures, and prefer to live alone in separate territories, though they are not altogether antisocial.

However, the Nashiningenmi do differ from spiders in several ways. The first being that they are not violent towards those of their own kind; a strict code governs them and keeps the peace: females are always dominant towards males, and among the genders, skilled hunters are always dominant towards those of less skill. Hunting skill is determined by the largest prey each hunter has brought down, signified by a skull carried with them at all times; whoever has the largest skull is the dominant one. In this way there are no battles for dominance, no discrepancies in opinion, and violence is avoided. If there is some doubt at a hunter’s skill, there challenge is settled in shows of dominance, not in battle; when one exhibits a show of dominance that the other cannot match, then the first is the dominant one and the other must back down. This code is abided to by all Nashiningenmi due to the fact that they are hunted by their own prey, and for the survival of their kind they will not kill one another.

While Nashiningenmi do not have any serious ‘religious’ beliefs, they do loosely belief in Kijo as their creator, and also as the one who bestows the knowledge of a name to each Nashiningenmi—parents are never expected to raise their hundreds of offspring, let alone name them all; that duty falls to Kijo, who names each one and gives them that knowledge when they reach ten years. In addition to this, at twenty years, each Nashiningenmi is considered an adult and is sought by a skilled craftsman called a weaver who will create for them a set of clothing for their human body out of the durable material of fallen Nashiningenmi hide. This clothing is never removed in the presence of another, as the Nashiningenmi have superstitions that if anyone was ever able to give a ‘perfect’ description of them, then that person would have power over the one being described. Thus, this clothing is used to ensure that no one ever has that chance, for they do not know what lies beneath that clothing.

Other than these base beliefs, a Nashiningenmi is free to believe whatever they want to, though most choose not to believe anything. A Nashiningenmi is also free to be loyal to anyone they choose or to no one at all, so long as their actions do not lead to harming other Nashiningenmi. It is this freedom that has allowed a handful of the spider demons to take part in human wars over the years in an attempt to gain benefits for themselves. While this is not so very common—most Nashiningenmi scorn the humans too much to see them as anything other than food—it is not completely unheard of, especially in times when there appears to be a clear victor for a Nashiningenmi to side with.