Yukionna (You-key-own-nah)
Legends of women from coldest mountains
Spirits of snow that typically dwell within snowy mountains and occasionally the lands below them during winter. Yukionna exclusively take on the forms of humanoid women with chilly bodies that have pale white or blue skin and often dark hair. Their connection to frigid weather allows them to influence snow and blizzards. Legends about them range greatly. Some hear the rumors of women sapping the life from strangers in a blizzard; slowly sucking the life force from their victims and encasing them in a cold icy coffin. On the flip side there are stories of Yuki Onna who live peacefully in their mountain territory content to live out their days. Even more rarely some venture out into the world, mingling with the other races and even finding mates.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Biological Traits
Agelessness: Yukionna don't visibly age from the point that they reach their adult prime and retain it for the rest of their lives. They can still be killed by other means such as mortal injury to their form.
Sleeplessness: Yukionna do not require rest or sleep to normally function as long as they work at a moderate pace. They are capable of sleeping and if a yukionna exhausts themselves, sleep can restore their stamina faster.
Breathlessness: Yukionna do not need to breathe to stay alive or function properly although they are physically capable of doing so.
Low body temperature: A Yukionna's body temperature is much lower than that of a warm blooded creature and is low enough to freeze the bare ground beneath their feet. Due to this, she is weak to heat and cannot handle higher temperatures that are considered comfortable for most species. A notable exception is that she can form a psychic link with her mating partner that allows her to adjust to his body temperature.
Supernatural Beauty: A Yukionna will subconsciously tap into the thoughts of another and alter their appearance to be beautiful. These changes could be subtle like having symmetrical bodies and flawless skin or dramatically like body shape. The more people present, the more subtle these changes will become.
Weather Manipulation: Yukionna can cause the weather to become snowy wherever they go. Shelter they reside inside of will always covered in snow, even if the surrounding climate is temperate.
Snow Manipulation: Yukionna can create, shape and manipulate ice as well natural forms of snow, hail, icicles, ice spikes and candles, glaciers, pack ice, frost, polar ice caps, and cold by reducing the kinetic energy of atoms and thus making things colder, for various effects and combinations.
Snow Intangibility: A yukionna can turn into her body into snow to avoid attacks by letting them pass through her, or by dissipating into snowflakes to float around.
Flight: A yukionna can fly by turning their legs or their entire body into a whirlwind of snow.
Genetics and Reproduction
Yukionna have a bunch of things about how they reproduce that are different than most spirits. These only take on female forms and in order to reproduce, they have to mate with organic male humanoids. Yukionna bred true but it is though that the father grants their daughter's the ability to flawlessly copy the physical form of a humanoid when they are born, as well as inherit some of his traits.
After a nine month pregnancy, a new yukionna is born from the union already with the physical form of a baby. The new mother will nurse her newborn like most humanoid females although instead of milk, her breasts will provide ectoplasm to help her daughter grow. Yukionna commonly only give birth to one child at a time, multiples are a very rare phenomena.
Growth Rate & Stages
Yukionna children called tsuraras start of life similar to many humanoids, babies in need of their parent's care. The Yukionna child will grow at the same pace as a human woman up until the prime of their lives (mid-twenties) when their bodies will physically stop aging, so they never appear middle-aged or elderly.
Past a certain point, around a couple of centuries, a yukionna becomes so accustomed to her body she'll lose the ability to revert into teleplasm and destruction of the body will destroy the spirit as well. Within another half century, a yukionna may finally pass on as their body disintegrates into snow.
Ecology and Habitats
Yukionna can usually only live in cold regions like snowy mountains, alpine forests or tundra.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Yukionna will start off from their mothers ectoplasm by breast feeding until they are attuned to the Mana of the pristine mountain snow of their environment. Water is also important for maintaining their bodies. However what they crave the most is the life force of the organic humanoids that they can acquire either by sucking it with an icy breath that leaves their victim's frozen or through copulation. As such, most in relationships make sure not to take to much from their mates in order for them to remain healthy.
They can also eat the organic food of other species although the process in less efficient than their natural diet.
Biological Cycle
Yukionna are only fertile during the winter time, every 5 to 9 years.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Solitary or small nuclear families
Facial characteristics
Eyes: Very narrow eyes with single eyelid, epicanthic fold may be mild, may be puffy under eye
Nose: High, thin, small nose
Mouth: Wide mouth but thin lips
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Wakoku, specifically Fuyoho mountains
Average Intelligence
Sapient
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
ESP: Extrasensory Perception is the default set of senses for a yukionna. This includes clairvoyance, which is sight using psychic energy that allows them to perceive the spirit realms. Also includes telepathy which allows for distant communication through psychic force.
Weather Sense: Yukionna can sense the changes in atmospheric pressure that precedes a oncoming winter storm.
Civilization and Culture
Beauty Ideals
Traditionally emphasis is on the face, neck, and hair. Longer hair is more beautiful, especially if longer than body.
Courtship Ideals
They typically hide their figure in a kimono when courting mates to entice them.
Relationship Ideals
Yukionna typically mate with a single partner until he passes away: serial monogamy. During their coupling, she will usually foster one or two daughters in a matricentric nuclear family unit. The family will establish their home where the Yukionna lives as they wouldn't be comfortable outside of their natural habitat. As Yukionna bred true, they trace their ancestry through the female line.
Common Dress Code
Traditionally Yukionna wear kimono, especially in white. Other times they may wear yukatas of blue and purple shades. Some may simply be nude as they would not suffer damage from the cold due to the nature of their manifestation or a bold attempt to get the attention of potential mates.
A growing trend among the younger generations is wearing the light casual clothes the fashions from other races due to aesthetic fascination and getting the attention of males.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Socialization
Yukionna girls are traditionally taught by their mothers at home, with fathers often spending part of the day gathering/hunting for themselves or maintaining the home. Children will most often play winter type activities in snow such as building forts and people from them, as well making snow angels and the like. Sled racing with or without animals is a popular traditional sport as is ice skating leading to the creation of recreational ice rinks. When hockey and surfing was introduced by cultural exchange, yukionna developed their own takes resulting in the creation of ice hockey and snowboarding.
Architecture
Normally Yukionna simply use their sorcery to create simple shelters from ice. More complex architecture made from packed snow and ice, but molded after Yokai architecture, with its signature slightly curved and titled roofs. In places with a lot of tourism, Yukionna will often construct ice hotels, temporary places promoted for adventurous travelers who are interested in novelties and unusual environments. The walls, fixtures, and fittings are made entirely of ice or compacted snow, and are held together using a substance known as snice, which takes the place of mortar in a traditional brick-built hotel.
Common Myths and Legends
There is a legend about ancient times about an avalanche that destroyed a hauflin village high up on the Fuyoho mountains. Years later the area was deemed haunted by the spirit of a deceased woman from anecdotal accounts where people were frozen to death or had their life taken from them.
One day a foreign hauflin man set up a cabin near the areas despite their warnings. During a terrible snowstorm, it is said that he found a beautiful woman and asked her to join him for the night. The two enjoyed the other's company and that she seduced the man into his bedroom. During their embrace the woman revealed herself to be a ghost who perished in the snow long ago.
It is at this point there are two different endings to this story. For the longest time, local haulfins said that the ghost took his life force through mating and was impregnated during the action, giving birth to spirit women that do the same to anyone that enters their domain.
For the yukionna themselves, they say that instead of stealing his life force, the spirit realized she harbored feelings for the man and became his wife instead. Eventually, she gave birth to spirits similar to her, creating the Yukionna race.
Slowly the latter verison became the more accepted verison, especially once assumptions about the Yukionna were cleared up over time.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Hauflins and other races that aligned with them originally saw them as temptress monsters and thus avoided their territories. During this time, Yukionna would be very isolated communities and only have very few mating opportunities when men got lost in the woods.
As cooperation between species became more commonplace, yukionna gradually became less feared with people willingly visiting their settlements and some yukionna even developing special lodges for tourists. Yukionna have also found success having families with other humans and fay males close to their native lands.
Amina Yukionna by Wen M
Scientific Name
Nix muler
Lifespan
500 years
Average Height
145 to 173 cm (4'9" to 5'8")
Average Weight
Weightless to 59 kg (130 lbs)
Average Physique
Majority are slender, some are voluptuous
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Most have pale white skin although some are born with a bluish complexion. Their hair comes in dark colors like black, dark brown, midnight blue, or violet, but those with blue skin can also have white hair. Yukionna eyes can be brown, blue, gray, or violet.
Geographic Distribution
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