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

[priforprince]

WE JUST REPLACED THESE!

[ Sorry, Maria. Hibiki is distracted by an extreme crisis.

If you go looking for her, you'll find her standing in a sitting room, chair overturned behind her. A full-size screen has descended along one wall. Hibiki has a remote control pointed at the screen and is jabbing buttons furiously.

But nobly. Always nobly. ]

I REJECT THE POSSIBILITY OF REQUIRING NEW BATTERIES ALREADY!

[declamando]

[Maria's barely past the doorway of the sitting room when she hears that outburst, and looks over the scene with an expression that's basically impossible to read. While she has a lot of patience for Hibiki's shenanigans most of the time, possibly more than many other people here, she has to draw the line somewhere.

Apparently, that somewhere is throwing a tantrum over batteries, because after a moment or two of staring, Maria simply turns around and starts heading back the way she came. If this is another haunting, at least it's a benign one.]

[priforprince]

THIS SHODDY WORKMANSHIP IS UNACCEPTABLE! WENDY!!!

[ There is a thunk sound, a crash, and a brilliant flash of light from behind Maria.... ]

[declamando]

[...Alright, fine, that's slightly more worrying than what she was seeing before. Drawing and letting out a rapid sigh, Maria turns on her heel and heads back towards the room she saw Hibiki in.]

Are you alright? [Presumably if she is, Maria will get ignored in favour of more yelling...]

[priforprince]

[ The coffee table (thankfully having been devoid of coffee or, more likely, tea) has been overturned. Hibiki is on the other side, down on one knee, a faint glow fading from around her body.

That had been close! If she weren't an invincible genius, she might have ended up doing something incredibly foolish! ]

...Don't trouble yourself. [ She stands, one hand in her bangs. ] This puniverse simply remains determined to prove its inferiority.

[ Her eyebrow is twitching. And so is the corner of her mouth. ]

[declamando]

[Maria makes a brief reminder to herself not to get involved if something like this happens again, for the sake of her respect level for Hibiki, if nothing else. As skilled as she might be as a performer, it really is impossible to take her seriously sometimes.

As it is, she leans against the door for the moment, just in case something else nasty happens if she tries to leave again.]

It might not just be the batteries, you know. It's the season for hauntings.

[Maria woke up this morning to possessed clothing, so trust her, she knows.]

[priforprince]

[ Hauntings? Her? Hibiki scoffs. ] Nothing would dare!

[ Behind her, a painting on the wall suddenly goes askew. ]

[declamando]

I doubt spirits would have reason to be afraid of repercussions. [Maria's tone is a tad on the dry side, but it's not too obvious. A moment or two later, when the painting skews, she simply points to it.]

Might I suggest giving that painting a more stable backing? [She knows exactly what it probably is at this point, but maybe Hibiki will accept it more easily if she's allowed to get there herself.]

[priforprince]

Eh?

[ WHEN DID THAT GET

Hibiki's disgruntled expression indicates this has been going on for. Quite some time.

Some sort of gears are turning in there. But this is the same elegant machine that spat out "sentence ender phobia" earlier, so. ]

[declamando]

[Maria doesn't miss the look...nor the fact that it doesn't seem to inspire any immediate realisation. Maybe she should drop a few more hints before hoping something might click.]

Paintings don't usually slip like that for no reason. Maybe there's something unusual about the temple.

[Please don't make her say it point-blank again, Hibiki...]

[priforprince]

My temple is perfect.

[ That was not the right tack, apparently. Not directly. But! On the plus side, now she's doing process of el-pri-mination. (The "pri" is, of course, for "Prince".)

Hibiki's temple is perfect. That fact is incontrovertible. If Hibiki's temple is perfect, assuming that as a given, then any anomalies within the temple must needs be not the fault of the temple itself, but instead....

She frowns. ]

Therefore...

[declamando]

Therefore it's something unusual from outside of it. [Maria offers the prompt in hopes that Hibiki might twig to the part about it being a haunting. There's not a great deal of options on the table as to what could have come in unnoticed from outside and done something like that with both of them in the room.]

This doesn't happen often, after all, does it? [She feels like Hibiki would be less prepared to say her temple was perfect if it did.]

[priforprince]

It couldn't be an ayakashi. [ We are eliminating all of the possible suspects here. Hibiki thinks very hard. A haunting? A haunting...

A haunting....

Why would Maria even propose a haunting? Just because it was summer?

But a haunting supposes something is unhappy with Hibiki, and that's a hurdle her mind can't so easily surmount. An individual here and there has failed to understand her glory, but, to wish her active harm? Or, worse, inconvenience?

The mental horse might need to do a few more rounds before it can jump that fence. ]

[declamando]

No, I don't think an ayakashi would bother with something that small, either. It'd have to be something that doesn't really have a mind for who it's troubling, but just wants to cause trouble.

[They're getting there. Very slowly, but Maria likes to hope it won't take Hibiki too long to manage to put the pieces together. At this point, it almost seems like it's wilful ignorance, but she's giving her the benefit of the doubt here to take the hints and make something of them.

Gods, give her patience.]

[priforprince]

I'm being haunted indiscriminately?!

[ From the sounds of her incredulity, that's worse than being hated. ]

[declamando]

I don't think things that haunt usually concern themselves with things like status.

[At least Hibiki got there in the end, though now Maria sounds more thoughtful than anything.]

[priforprince]

This is twice as intolerable! The infestation must be rooted out!

[ This is the part where normally she'd yell for Ando, but he's not here and since Wendy didn't come earlier, she must be busy. And far be it from Hibiki to order Maria around.

So out comes her laptop, from a jacket pocket that...doesn't look like it should be able to hold a laptop. ] I'm obtaining an exorcist immediately.

[ FURIOUS TYPING ]

[declamando]

[Well, at least she's taking a logical enough course of action about this, even if Maria isn't quite sure where that laptop suddenly came from. Then again, she can't be too critical of others pulling objects out of places they shouldn't fit given what goes on in her world sometimes.]

Do we have any exorcists around here? Calling a Near Shore one isn't going to be much use.

[Maria would assume they do given the variety of talents around here, but she's never met one herself.]

[priforprince]

That's unclear. But, if they've prattled on about themselves the way those in this pantheon have a tendency....

[ Don't mind her, just running a bunch of searches on the BBS for related terminology. A god or a shinki with experience running exorcisms.....And, over here, a cross-check of the directory of god names registered to the BBS with a database of protection and exorcism-related gods from a wide variety of faiths...

Nobody can outsource like Shikyoin Hibiki. ]

[declamando]

You're counting on people having spoken about it on the BBS? That would make sense.

[An exorcist is the kind of thing that definitely would be needed here at times, and she's not wrong in that people usually aren't too shy about sharing their skills and knowledge. As it is, it's probably the best option they have short of asking around.]

If nothing else, they might know ways to get rid of them that don't need a full exorcism.

[priforprince]

Whether their methods work are another matter.

[ Still, one uses the players one has at one's disposal in the cast.

That said.

Why does she keep getting hits from that turtle shinki asking people about ghost stories? ]

[declamando]

Well, if anyone's methods were going to work, it would be ours, since we're spiritual beings ourselves here.

[Gods and very literal spirits would presumably be better equipped to deal with this sort of thing than humans, even if methods that might have worked in other worlds probably won't do it here.

As it is, Maria observes her progress.] It doesn't seem like you're having much luck.

[priforprince]

Children's tales and the like have no bearing on this situation...

[ A sigh. Hibiki snaps the laptop shut. ] No matter. I'll do something about the issue myself.

[ And now that she has declared that, this infestation is good as gone!

Right? ]

[declamando]

[Maria has her doubts about Hibiki's ability to handle this specific kind of situation, but she doesn't let it show through quite yet.]

So you have an idea other than seeking out someone experienced?

[She's pretty sure just saying she'll deal with it isn't going to deal with it, but she's also not sure Hibiki realises that.]

so it turns out she did something impossible in this thread :( the laptop can't get heaven's bbs

[priforprince]

Inspiration is but a matter of time.

[ A clock across the room starts going off. It isn't a new hour.

Hibiki's expression freezes.

What a terrible pun. ]