018 | Season Spirits

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Season spirits and spooky things
When: IC August 1-15
Where: The Near Shore and Far Shore
Summary: It's the time for spirits to get a bit more 'lively'.



August is a spiritual season in Japan with many people preparing for the Obon festival but many others get into the spirit in another way. All across Japan, people have begun to share their favorite summer ghost stories. Movie theaters advertise the hottest horror flick of the season, teenagers challenge each other to do trials of courage, haunted houses begin to pop up, and it feels like you can't change the channel without switching to some ghost hunting urban legend special. All of this talk about spirits comes at a cost, though.

July comes and passes easily enough but it's almost as if as soon as August begins, so do the incidents. There's an increase in spiritual activity and shenanigans on both shores. Some of them are harmless spooks but others are much more sinister. Arm yourselves with all of the ofuda and omamori you can find and get out there and restore peace!



Possessed Possessions

Inhabitants of the Far Shore may awaken to find their sheets trying to strangle them and shoes stomping on the floor around them. Others may go about their day and find out their teapots suddenly only serve lukewarm tea or their weapons are trying to take swings at them. They're just playful spirits that will abandon their hosts if you shove any ofuda/omamori at them or yell loudly enough. They aren't malicious spirits... they were only just trying to have some fun.

Spirited Festivals

There's a festival every weekend and some of them have set up haunted houses for patrons to visit. You have your standard haunted house thrills... costume make up, jump scares, special effects smoke, the usual! But it looks like some real ghosts have made themselves at home here. Visitors are going in and emerging hours later absolutely traumatized. It looks like once you enter, the real spirits walk you around in circles and give you real scares. There are some spirits here just to have fun thrills and these are spirits that can be chased away with regular ofuda. But it looks like the more violent ones are actually ayakashi out for vengeance. Be careful in there!

Cursed Charms

There sure are some weird trends out there, huh? The latest one is buying cursed trinkets off the internet and passing them off as gifts to unsuspecting victims whether it be to prank a friend or get revenge on an enemy. Cursed mirrors, dolls, fake ofuda, VHS tapes, and so on are being passed around the Near Shore and spreading all sorts of curses.

• Bad luck. As long as you're in possession of the cursed item, you'll be followed by bad luck to varying degrees depending on the quality of the charm.
• Fear. Holding onto this charm results in intense, crippling fear. The fear can manifest as an intense paranoia at all times or being frozen with fear in the face of danger. Some say you can even die of fright...
• Sickness. This charm is pretty straightforward. Having this charm just makes you feel incredibly under the weather and your health will worsen the longer you have the charm.
• Evil. Holding onto this charm results in you being followed attracting evil instead of warding it. Suddenly, you feel as though you are always being followed, as if something is stalking you and clearly out to get you. You begin to run into smaller ayakashi at first but they keep growing in strength and number until you can't fight anymore.
• Bad romance. Someone's meddled with a romance charm so it ends relationships instead of making them! People stuck with this charm are suddenly hyper aware of the faults of others. Everything gets on your nerves and you can't stand being around that person because they're just that annoying. It doesn't just work on couples! It also works on friends and relatives too.
• Bears? An oddly specific curse. It looks like someone has taken a protection from bears charm and made it so now you attract bears where ever you go. Some of them are nice but others...

You can try to destroy the charms but you will find that unless you have purification powers or rend it, the effects last. It looks like most people have been able to shake off the effects by simply disposing of them at temples and buying another charm to counter the effects.

Haunting Hour

There are reports of violent attacks at night-- people being pulled into alleys and attacked, school children being chased by slashers while walking home from school, homes being broken into-- and all of it is done without a single clue left behind to explain who did it. People are warned to be careful at night and as the sun begins to set, something happens. The hour between sunset and dark is supposed to be the scariest hour them all. At this time, the shadows are suspiciously bigger and darker and you constantly see things just out of the corner of your eye. Suddenly, the wind blows cold and there's a rotten smell in the air like blood. It's Oumagatoki, the hour evil spirits meet. Small time ayakashi and spirits on the verge of becoming ayakashi spill into the streets and begin to terrorize others. Protect the people of the Near Shore and watch your own backs.*

* These are just generic ayakashi! Nothing special, nothing specific. Feel free to make up and NPC your own two-bit ayakashi.

THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

In the evening, everyone will receive a set of coordinates and a message from an Anonymous sender,

I want to talk about the
mysterious things that have been happening
lately.
OF course, i
NEED
EVERYONE to come. so don't be
late! see
yoU.
:)

Everyone receives it and there is no way to track where the message came from. If you follow the directions, you'll arrive at a small temple on the outskirts of a city. A sacred fire is lit on the grounds for people to dispose of any cursed or old charms they may have collected. Hang around a bit and it'll become obvious that no one knows who has gathered all of you here tonight. The only ones around are gods and shinki. It doesn't look like any evil spirits are around so other than being invited to the middle of no where at night... there's nothing to worry about. If you wait around, nothing will happen. So while you're here, you might as well discuss the strange happenings! Or tell ghost stories around the fire.

Wildcard

Choose your own adventure! Feel free to make up your own prompts. Ronald Knox's player (diehardreaper) has offered up their temple as a test of courage in the Far Shore for those who want to try their luck. Check out their description under the Baron's manor.

In Summary:

• Beat the heat by feeling a scary chill
• Deal with cursed and spirit-imbued items
• Keep the Near Shore people safe
• Chat about your scary encounters
• Have fun~

Comments

[minogame]

But this one took my 500 yen coin...

( And those are valuable! That's almost $5 bucks, Davesprite!

Urashima looks at the fire and nods. )

I went to a temple to pray for good luck... I got a fortune slip and it said I'd find bad luck... and that coin was the only thing I found all day. It was on the ground at the park...

[redotiertwo]

[Give Davesprite a minute while he remembers how much that's supposed to be.]

That's like five bucks, right, why the hell is that still a coin and not a note.

[Japanese currency, man. He's still getting used to putting a decimal point in before the last two digits of everything and pretending that's 100% accurate conversion instead of just ballpark.

Despite the situation, Davesprite has to give that a dry, deadpan laugh.]

Well, it wasn't fucking wrong, was it. That's just not the kind of fortune you want to actually be accurate.

[minogame]

Why would it be a note...?

( Davesprite, that's just weird. )

It was nice something told me, though... ( But enough about him! He gives Davesprite his full attention now, ) What about bears?

[redotiertwo]

I dunno, maybe because us obnoxious Westerners use notes for that kind of money. [America uses them for basically all the money, but he's still pretty sure they do it across the pond as well.

Ruffling his wings a bit, Davesprite rolls onto his side.] Yeah, I tried to get into the cultural shenanigans going on and picked up one of those bear-warding charms that some dude was claiming were totally cursed and mysterious. Turns out it was cursed, but not actually mysterious because all it did was attract every fucking bear within a fifty mile radius.

[minogame]

I don't think you're obnoxious.

( He says it right away, without thinking. It's like he wants to make a point to tell Davesprite that he appreciates him. )

A bear charm? ( That sounds... really specific but Urashima isn't going to question it anymore beyond that. Sounds legit! ) How many bears did you have?

[redotiertwo]

Damn, I must not be trying hard enough. [The answer comes smoothly and without hestitation, despite the fact that inwardly Davesprite's doing very little but questioning why Urashima would make a point of saying that. Even if he weren't a disaster on the self-worth front, he'd...probably still consider himself pretty obnoxious.

Moving on for the moment, at least, he deadpans an answer to that question before even attempting a serious one.] All of the bears. Or at least all of the bears that could be bothered trekking into the city to follow me.

[minogame]

( Because he considers Davesprite to be a good friend and "obnoxious" isn't really a trait you associate with people you like, is it? Davesprite is a little weird and hard to understand but as far as Urashima's concerned, plenty of things go over his head and he's a little strange himself too, isn't he? )

Huh? There aren't that many bears in the city though, are there? ( YOU WOULD THINK SO... ) It sounds like a story... The tengu and the many bears!

( That's definitely a fairytale title, don't you think? He looks pretty proud of himself too for thinking of the title and he grins at Davesprite. )

Hey, hey, tell me your story.

[redotiertwo]

There were today. Fuck "If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise", today it was "if you go down to the corner store, or to the Near Shore at all, or hell, probably even the door of your temple, just don't fucking risk the teddy bear picnic".

[Davesprite is still a little rusty on his Japanese legends, though, and while he knows enough to be aware that Urashima would be referring to him with the "tengu" thing, he sits up a bit and swipes his tail as if musing.]

Alright, let's make a deal: I'll tell you the story if you give me a refresher course on what tengu are.

[minogame]

Tengu.

( He says it again, a little slower like that would help Davesprite understand him. )

Mountain and forest spirits! They all look a little different... but a lot of pictures show them with wings. Like a crow. ( And he holds his arms out wide as if to give himself some wings. And then he looks at Davesprite like, "LIke you." ) They can be kind of dangerous sometimes... but they're really protective too.

[redotiertwo]

[While Urashima gets a rather flat brow raise at repeating the name, because Davesprite is pretty sure he already said the word acceptably enough, he doesn't remark on it largely because Urashima moves on quickly. The thing about the wings is pretty obvious, and Davesprite gives a dry laugh at the particular comparison he draws.]

Fuck, well, if they're like crows then we already have one side of the family in common. I'm pretty sure they're not half as dangerous as the level of edge I've got going on here, though. [He runs his talons along the handle of his katana, though that's at least in part to stop thinking about the pit that reasserts itself in his stomach when he hears "protective". Sure, he might be that, but he's far from good at it.]

[minogame]

You're a spirit too.

( At least, now he is? Was he before? Urashima doesn't know. He eyes the katana and wonders if Davesprite might like to practice some time... but now isn't the time for that question. He claps his hands once and sits up straight, eyes bright and excited at Davesprite, )

Now you have to tell a story.

[redotiertwo]

I'm a sprite. Kinda not the same thing. [Well, he is half dead in the most literal sense, but as far as he could glean from his recent memories, sprites are more coded guides than an actual spirit.

He is kind of obliged to tell a story now, though, so he considers what the best story of today to turn into some kind of fairytale shenanigan is.]

Okay, well, how does the story of the neon orange tengu's badass journey with his big fun companion to return a bunch of bears to their goddess' sacred grounds sound.