Waiting quiet in a tree, watching you and watching me.
Yara small, and not much bright. But Yara has an appetite.
Wandering kids, walk with care. Or into Yara’s mouth you’ll stare.”
- Blanca Martinez de Rituerto, 'Yara-Ma-Yha-Who'
The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who, or at least the version reported in publicly available records, is a niche but relatively popular Australian cryptid. This creature was first recorded by Aboriginal-Australian preacher David Unaipon in “Legendary Tales Of The Australian Aborigines”, a compendium of various myths published in 1930 (albeit this text would be credited to its white editor W. Ramsay Smith, and Unaipon would not receive recognition for its creation until 2001).
Herein, it was described as a hunched, red-skinned humanoid bearing a loose resemblance to a frog, albeit with the additions of sucker-tipped fingers, a toothless mouth and an oversized head. The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who would ambush lone travellers, especially children, exsanguinating their blood through its suckers to weaken them, before devouring its victim whole with its prodigious maw. Those devoured by the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who were reportedly not killed, but instead regurgitated with bizarre mutations - shorter stature and reddish-tinted skin. Allegedly, if this disgusting process of regurgitation and consumption was repeated enough, the wretched victim would eventually be transformed into another Yara-Ma-Yha-Who.
And to those in the general public even aware of this old myth, this is the extent of their knowledge - a morbid, but entertaining cryptid story to tell around the campfire.
But for the men and women of ESPER (and perhaps Delta Green), these disgusting creatures are no mere folktale or ghost story. For them the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who, or at least an unnatural entity bearing a strong resemblance to its legend, is a terribly real threat.
The Truth
The Fungi From Yuggoth have long since inhabited the Earth, mining rare metallic ores, warring with pre-human civilisations and performing unspeakable experiments upon unfortunate humans. Delta Green knows of their mining efforts within the Appalachian and Himalayan mountain ranges, as well as their nefarious puppeteering of their sister organisation, Majestic-12.
However, there is a reason for Australia's own bevy of UFO sightings - the Mi-Go have had no small number of operations in the vast confines of the sunburnt country. One such endeavour was their research into the Great Old One Tsathoggua, the Sleeper of N’kai.
During their worship-placation of the slumbering bat-headed monstrosity, the Mi-Go were fascinated by the ichorous secretions of the Great Old One - mostly their capacity to spawn all manner of unspeakable creatures. The capricious aliens, hoping to harness such hypergeometric power, took many samples of Tsathoggua’s innumerable secretions to study.
And it was within a laboratory deep in the Warlpiri country of the Tanami Desert that the Mi-Go submerged human prisoners in great stone vats of black ichor - spawning the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who. It is unknown whether these perverse creations were deliberately seeded across Australia's forested areas, or if they escaped from the facility after the Mi-Go merely declined to maintain it.
But in truth, the providence of these monsters matters little to their wretched victims.
YARA-MA-YHA-WHO - Degenerate Ambush Predator and Spawn of TsathogguaSTR 21 CON 21 DEX 14 INT 9 POW 10HP 21 WP 10ARMOUR: Thick reddish-brown skin like slimy bark (4 Armour)SKILLS: Alertness 80%, Anthropology (Human) 20%, Art (Dance) 40%, Climb 90%, Melee Weapons 35%, Waddle Around Clumsily 30%, Stealth 80%, Unnatural 30%ATTACKS: Improvised Bludgeon or Thrown Projectile (35%, 1D8 DMG)Exsanguination (60%, pin and see LATCH AND DRAIN)Vomit (75%, 2 targets, costs 6 WP, see REGURGITATE)Consume Victim (special, target must be pinned, see DEVOUR)DEVOUR: To successfully swallow a human whole, the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who must first succeed on an Art (Dance) roll to perform a series of bizarre, rhythmic body movements as it tilts back its head and shoves its victim down its gaping mouth. If conscious, its prey can oppose this roll with their STRx5, escaping its grasp on a success, so the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who prefers to weaken its prey with LATCH AND DRAIN before attempting to swallow them. This costs 1D6/1D20 SAN.
LATCH AND DRAIN: The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who latches onto its prey with an impossibly strong grip, exsanguinating their blood with hypodermic proboscises inside each of its suckers. Each needle is also laced with a potent muscle relaxant, further weakening the victim, who lose 1D6 STR every turn they are grappled. At 0 STR, they are rendered half-conscious and paralysed. The victim recovers 1 STR every hour, if able to rest safely.
REGURGITATE: If the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who fears for its life, especially when facing multiple opponents, it can vomit a spray of mucus at a range of up to 15m. This mucus has powerful amnestic properties, targets make an INTx5 roll at -20% or become disoriented due to sudden memory loss, being considered “Unaware” for the purposes of being attacked. They can repeat this INTx5 roll every turn, until they succeed or they are attacked. Even after succeeding, the victim suffers a -20% to all rolls for an hour.
SANITY LOSS: 1/1D6
Corruption
The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who’s motivations for hunting humans are a mixture of recreational sport and reproductive urge. When it swallows a victim, the potent amnestics within their bodily fluids render them helpless as they are stuck inside a moist, black abyss with a inability to form even basic thoughts or recall the simplest memory. The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who keeps the victim inside their gut for approximately 24-hours, whilst drinking copious amounts of water. Somehow, the victim will not be suffocated during this traumatic process - perhaps its amnestic-mucus contains a heretofore unknown substance which sustains biological function.
After 24-hours of captivity, the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who will regurgitate the bewildered and weakened victim so that it may sleep. Particularly strong individuals may be able to escape during this brief reprieve, but the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who will attempt to hunt them down and swallow them again if it detects them fleeing. Some reports note particularly sadistic specimens deliberately allowing their prey to recover enough to escape, so that they may hunt them all over again.
Each nightmarish day of digestion costs 1D6/1D20 SAN to the Unnatural. Every time a victim passes a Breaking Point due to this Sanity Loss, their body mutates and becomes more akin to the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who and at 0 SAN, the poor soul transforms into a Yara-Ma-Yha-Who. Even if a victim escapes before completing their metamorphosis, they would still be infected by Tsathoggua’s taint. They may even one day degenerate into worship of the Sleeper of N’kai.
Behaviour
The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who is most at home in heavily forested areas, like the lush rainforests of the upper reaches of the Northern Territory and Queensland. This is due to its impressive capacity for climbing and swinging through the treetops with its oversized sucker-tipped hands, and its penchant for ambushing its prey by jumping onto unsuspecting victims from above. On the flipside, the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who also has rather limited ground-based mobility, with its weak vestigial legs requiring it to clumsily stumble around using its arms to support itself, a mode of locomotion described by some witnesses as similar to the “waddle of a cockatoo”.
When it comes to hunting, the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who prefers unattended children as they are easiest to overpower and consume. However, the creature doesn’t strictly attack weakened targets and is quite happy to ambush isolated hikers, able to stuff even grown men into its salivating gullet.
Indeed, despite their preference for ambush tactics, Yara-Ma-Yha-Who are capable combatants. Prior to the introduction of firearms during the European conquest of the Australian continent, prospecting indigenous hunters of the degenerate creatures would need experienced fighters, well-armed with quality spears, woomeras and boomerangs, to have a hope of dispatching one.
However, with the colonisation of Australia and the attempted genocide of many First Nations peoples, the oral history telling the true danger the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who has been lost. And while these perverted creatures have been pushed to the periphery of modern society, this means they once again disproportionately target rural populations of Aboriginal Australians.
The isolation of disadvantaged rural communities, combined with their history of neglect from law enforcement, supplies the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who with ample hunting grounds for years to come.
