Name: Heikegani

Name: Heikegani

Alternate Names: Samurai Crab

Mythology: Japanese Mythology (But they actually exist as well! There are just many myths surrounding the animal)

Size: Small, the size of a house cat.

Environment: Ocean, beaches, cliffs

In Mythika: Because of some unknown, bizarre curse Heikegani’s came into existence. Every time a samurai commits suicide its spirit will be cursed and bound onto a simple small crab animal. The spirit/soul merges with the little crab and it gains a sinister and evil form of intelligence, while the spirit of the samurai is doomed to forever (as the crabs become immortal) guard the small vermin against attackers. Heikegani can use their pincers as hands and use them to grab small weapons (mostly magical weapons) to fight with, whenever an enemy attacks the dog-sized crabs however the spirit of the samurai will appear with a spiritual weapon and attack the soul of the enemy, while they can’t touch the flesh of a victim they do extreme damage to the spirits/souls of the creatures. When the Heikegani crab is killed in battle the spirit finally finds rest, however, if another crab is close the spirit will instead just replace itself into the other crab and the curse continues. The Game Sprite I have in mind for Heikegani is awesome, a little crab with a samurai-like mask decorated on its shell, holding some samurai sword in one of his pincers that is guarded by a awesome Samurai spirit/ghost, still dressed in his gear.

Ronin Heikegani are a special breed, they are created from the souls of Ronin Samurai (Samurai without a master) which merge themselves with Karkinos or Giant Crabs.  They are much more powerful than the common Heikegani.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heikegani