Yamask is a small, shadow-like Pokémon holding a golden mask that has a face from when it was a human. It has long, tendril-like arms with three fingers on each hand, large, teary, red, eyes, and a long tail-like appendage that holds its mask.
Yamask arose from the spirits of humans interred in graves in a bygone age, retaining its memories from before it became a Pokémon. It sometimes looks at its mask and it cries in longing. It becomes furious if its mask is ever lost or taken away. Yamask is known to ramble through ruins, searching for someone who knows its face. In A Night in the Nacrene City Museum!, this mask is shown produce tears as a result of Yasmak's emotions. In the same episode, it's also shown that if this mask is put on a human's face, they will become possessed by the Yamask, allowing it to control and speak through them.
Galarian Yamask, in contrast to its Unova variant, has tearier, purple eyes and has an ancient clay tablet depicting a red tail directly attached around its tail-like appendage.
Galarian Yamask is said to have been born when that tablet was drawn to a vengeful spirit. The tablet bears cursed engravings which are said to absorb Yamask's dark power. Galarian Yanmask will swing its slab around foes with malicious intent. This process, brought by an ancient curse, triggers Galarian Yamask's Evolution into Runerigus.
In Pokémon GO, Galarian Yamask could be obtained by completing the time-limited Special Research, A Spooky Message Unmasked and 2/4 of the Special Research set, What Lies Beneath the Mask.
Galarian Yamask evolves into Runerigus when the player travels under certain arches in the overworld after Yamask takes at least 49 HP in damage without fainting. Healing does not reset the counter, and damage can be taken across multiple battles. Taking damage from certain sources, such as self-inflicted Curse damage or weather effects, does not contribute to the 49 HP damage requirement.
Yamask debuted in A Night in the Nacrene City Museum!, where it was causing havoc in the Nacrene City Museum. This eventually turned out to be because Yamask's mask had been put on display after it accidentally dropped it while sleeping. In the end, Lenora, along with Ash, Iris, Cilan, and Hawes, gained an understanding with it and gave its mask back. Yamask then left the museum peacefully.
Additionally it is stated that this Yamask is millennia old.
Galarian Yamask's Evolution into Runerigus is the only location-based Evolution in Pokémon Sword, Shield, & Legends: Z-A, as all other Pokémon with location-based Evolutions are either unobtainable or use an Evolution stone to evolve instead.
Origin
Yamask may be based on an Egyptian ba, a person's soul, typically depicted as a bird with a human head, or šwt, the shadow or silhouette of a person's soul, both appearing after the person's death. Its overall body shape is similar to the Eye of Horus. The mask on its tail is likely a death mask.
Galarian Yamask holds a clay tablet that may be based on runestones instead. It may also be based on a Deildegast, a Norwegian folklore spirit that is forced to haul around a boundary stone as punishment for moving one while it was alive. The fact that Galarian Yamask evolves into Runerigus after taking at least 49 HP in damage could be a reference to the antarābhava, a Buddhist concept of Purgatory after death and before reincarnation; this process of Buddhist Purgatory is said to last 49 days.
Name origin
Yamask may be a combination of 闇 yami (darkness), や ya (bad), or Yama (lord of the dead in Hindu and Buddhist mythology), and mask.
Desumasu may be derived from death, mask, and death mask. It may be a pun on ですます体 desumasu-tai, a form of polite Japanese which gets its name from the fact that sentences often end in です desu or ます masu.
This Pokémon article is part of Project Pokédex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each Pokémon species, as well as Pokémon groups and forms.
Spell Tag (5%)
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For other sprites and images, please see Yamask images on the Bulbagarden Archives.
