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

[erogappa]

[ Maybe Tsuzuki's not not-human after all. Maybe somebody in his previous life just took pity on him for being dangerously clumsy and cast a spell so he'd never get hurt too badly for too long.

Or maybe he's some kind of robot? ...Eh, conversations for another time. ]

Are you kidding? I've been here long enough that I know better than to pick up anything that everyone else is playin' with. [ Preventative Hipsterdom: learn it live it love it. ] No, it was some bird guy at the fire just now. He warned me about the bears.

[sweetdeath]

Yeah, yeah... [Look, it was a cute teddy bear.] Lucky break, then. I'm glad you figured it out before I gave it to Sakura, anyway.

[erogappa]

Oh? Sakura, huh? You've got a girlfriend?

[ It was a cute teddy bear, and, without the curse part, an A+ gift for a cute girl! ]

Is she a hottie?

[sweetdeath]

Hey, watch your mouth, that's my goddess you're talking about.

[Like: literally his goddess. He nudges Gojyo in the ribs with an elbow, not too hard.]

And she's about thirteen.

[There's two kinds of girls you give cute teddy bears to. One of them is girlfriends. The other one? Actual little kids....]

[erogappa]

Oh. [ Ugh, now he feels like a creep. Great. ]

Shit, then I'm doubly glad you didn't give her that charm! [ And that's a safe diversion of topics, so lets head that direction! ] Where'd they all come from anyway, do you have any idea?

[sweetdeath]

Seriously. She might've really gotten hurt.

[Tsuzuki shakes his head, glancing out over the party in total obliviousness to Gojyo's reaction. It's a good question. Where did all those weird cursed objects come from?]

I don't know. Maybe this kind of thing happens around Obon every year.

[erogappa]

[ The temple Gojyo usually uses to get to his bar is all the way on the other side of this row of temples, past the fields and just at the edge of the woods. It's about a thirty minute walk from Sharak's temple, and it'll probably be about that long from here, too. Hopefully Tsuzuki isn't adverse to taking a stroll, because it doesn't even occur to Gojyo that walking a mile and a half in the dark is anything at all out of the ordinary. ]

It seems to happen a lot more than that, have you noticed? If it's not cursed charms it's us gettin' attacked by killer bugs or gettin' turned into, uh... [ He trails off there, then shakes his head and picks the thread of the conversation right back up. ] There's always something. It's like we're in a monster of the week show.

[sweetdeath]

Yeah, it's like it's a different thing every week.

[He blows his breath out, pulling a face.] I mean, maybe that kind of thing's normal, though? I run into ayakashi on the Near Shore all the time, so it didn't seem like it was all that weird that there'd be some going after a party there. Then there's been all kinds of stuff showing up possessed lately, too.

[He's perfectly willing to match Gojyo's pace, hooking one thumb into a pocket as he glances away from the fire dwindling behind them and out over the quiet temples instead. A few have lights burning in the windows; most are dark. Sleeping, maybe. Or abandoned.]

Where're we heading?

[erogappa]

[ There's too damn many parties. People are vanishing, people are getting killed, there's monsters everywhere, and there's a party every week. It feels like a distraction, and Gojyo's getting sick of it. ]

You look like a man who could use a drink.

[sweetdeath]

You mean you want one, huh?

[He winks cheerfully at Gojyo.] Yeah, okay, I think we could both use a drink.

[Some of this might be normal, some of it might not. People are dying, gods are disappearing...

... He just hopes he can keep an eye on his friends, that's all.]