thenearshore | 018 | Season Spirits

018 | Season Spirits

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~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's always the most dangerous for others when I'm risking my life, really. [Komaeda's remarks are casually conversational.] I don't think my luck is actually capable of killing me unless I want to die. So if I'm in lethal danger, the bad luck tends to rebound onto someone else...usually someone I care about. So since we've only just met, you're probably not in too much danger. But if the bad luck is more minor, then usually it's happy enough targeting me.

[He gives Davesprite a thoughtful look.] So...you're a combination of things? What part of them made you so orange?

So basically you're a 90s antihero who can't get too close to others for their own safety, except with maybe fifty percent less edge. [But only fifty percent. He's still working a kind of casual teenage mad scientist look.

Davesprite waves a hand a bit at the questions.] Dude, you're lucky I even remember any of this. But it was the sprite kernel - the thing the bits went into. It was bright fuck-off orange, don't ask me why because I didn't remember that much.

[He remembered what things were as soon as he saw them again, but beyond that they're still pretty enigmatic in his mind. He could put a name to the kernel, but nothing else beyond what he saw in that memory.]

[Komaeda laughs at that.] Oh, hardly! Trash like me, possessing such a worthless talent, could never aspire to something as glamorous as being an antihero. Or any kind of hero, really. I've always considered myself as a stepping stone to those with true talent.

It's interesting how you appear almost ghostly, though. Although I admit I've never heard of anything like a neon orange ghost... [He tilts his head.] So if sprites are game guides, exactly what game were you meant to provide guidance for?

[As someone who frequently has some pretty dark thoughts about himself, Davesprite can relate to feeling like trash, but that doesn't mean he doesn't give Komaeda a serious brow raise at outright saying it.] I dunno, if your talent is this luck thing then that's pretty fucking powerful in its own way. And you seem like a decent enough dude to not be going around calling yourself trash.

[As for the question, Davesprite's face tightens briefly. It's still uncomfortable to think too hard into details, but he does at least have a name from what he saw.]

Think it was called Sburb, but don't quote me on that. Whatever it was, I only remember bits and pieces and all of them are pretty fucked up.

People certainly seem to be kind here...but do you really think you know me well enough to judge that? Most people find me disturbing at best...

I'm sorry if I called up unpleasant memories from your own past, however. Though as I gather you're a shinki, I'm surprised you have any at all...isn't that meant to be impossible?

[That some shinki aren't entirely subject to this hard rule isn't something Komaeda, as a new god, has heard yet.]

I can kinda see why with that whole thing you've got going on, but being trash takes more than just that. There's an artistry to being a trash person that not many people appreciate.

[So he's probably playing the trash thing up more than it needs, but oh well. Clearly it's fine it it works for his point.

At the mention of memories, he tips a hand.] Nah, we just can't be told. But sometimes the new shinki remember shit on their own - just wake up knowing it - and that's all cool and we don't die a horrible demonic death because of it.

Hmm...what sort of thing would make someone trash, then? [Now Komaeda is curious. He knows he's trash, and he's certain he could get Davesprite to agree if he divulged certain things...but the companionship is nice, and he doesn't want to forego it just yet. Besides, the last time he was entirely honest, he turned everyone who knew him against him...and there's a lot more people in the heavens than there were on Jabberwock Island. With death being essentially meaningless, and having nothing to look forward to as a result - dying again won't help him much - he's not sure he wants to consign himself to eternal loneliness. Whether or not he deserves it.]

[Davesprite almost goes for the "being me" joke (that isn't really a joke but he totally would've played it off as one), and then decides it probably isn't worth the trouble. Instead, he enters the pose of a Deep Thinker while still drifting along.]

Not giving a single fuck about the effects of your actions is a good start, also just generally being an unpleasant slimy douchebag. You know, the kind of people you just instinctively want to describe as trash. Like used car salesmen. Or accountants. I could probably make a fucking list of the appropriate career paths for a true trash being, but then we'd be here all week and then some and may still not have the true grasp of what being trash really means. You can't just understand trash without suffusing yourself in the trash life, shit doesn't work like that.

[So he's rambling. Sort of.]

That's a rather confusing definition... [Komaeda gives Davesprite a rather bemused look.]

What about yourself? Do you consider yourself a good person?

[There's perhaps a split-second hesitation at that question before Davesprite smooths it over, spreading his taloned hands in a vague and casual motion.]

I can say without a doubt that I am acceptable at the job of being a person. Or half-person. Some might even say I'm fucking great at being a half-person, relatively speaking.

[Relatively speaking, because there's very few other half-people here to compare himself to, which automatically heightens his score.]

Without a doubt? [Komaeda echoes this, giving Davesprite a questioning look.] That seems strange, considering you're a shinki. What if you were actually a terrible person while you were alive, and you don't remember it?

[Davesprite can pretty much confirm that's actually the case, but he's just not going to do that, because that's a kettle of fish he prefers not to open with people he just met.]

Then I'll just have to hope I'm not tragically disproven by any future instances of shinki flashback syndrome, it'd be a fucking heartbreaker for everyone.

I'd hope not. [Komaeda hums thoughtfully.] Something like that happened back in my old life, and it was such a disappointment. When you, or people you like and admire, turn out to be the worst kind of scum imaginable, and you'd completely forgotten about it...

Yeah, I feel that, except also I can't really think about it because if I do I start feeling like the worst kind of scum imaginable in an entirely different way. [His recent memory regain kind of made him scrape against thinking about his past a bit more than he'd like, so he's all too familiar with the feeling now.] I guess at least your person isn't here, probably.

[Komaeda laughs.] People, actually. It was my entire class - myself included. But it's true that none of the rest of them are here...I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved about that, though.

It just seems a little worrying to have shinki forget their pasts after my own experiences with that, I guess. Especially with some of them getting their memories back, like you. Forgetting isn't always a bad thing, and remembering isn't always good...so it seems like combining the worst of both worlds, doesn't it?

[That's kind of a weird thought even with Davesprite having lost his own memories, and he raises a brow slightly at the explanation.]

Sounds like some complicated shit to navigate, dude, and that's coming from someone navigating a whole other school of it. But I'll take not turning into a rampaging technicolour monster over regaining all my memories, especially if they're all as shit as what I got.

[Which they probably aren't, it just really wasn't pleasant to learn exactly why he thought of himself so lowly.]

That's probably the best choice! I can't say anything really good came of the one person who actually regained her memories...I didn't actually get mine back. I just learned about what we all forgot secondhand.

What god do you serve, by the way?

Huh. Still sounds fucked up, but I guess you weren't all getting it thrown back in your face verbatim like shinki do when we roll the memory dice.

[It's not a pleasant experience, as Davesprite can loudly confirm given his last exposure to it.]

Hajime Ichinose, or Neith when we're on business. I'm what they call an exemplar, since she has another shinki.

I'm glad I didn't. I was apparently a very different person before I lost my memories of who that person was...if one were to put it into gaming terms, it's like I'm from a save file made from before making whatever decision turned my character evil! So if I'd actually gotten the memories back, I might have gone back to really being evil...

[He shoots Davesprite a quick, sharp look at the name of his god, but after a moment it fades as he relaxes again.] That's funny...a friend of mine I left behind was named Hajime. Hinata Hajime.

[Well, that sure sounds like a thing. Putting it into gaming terms also helps a lot, just because Davesprite is pretty intimately familiar with those for a variety of reasons.] Okay, yeah, definitely fucked up, you dodged a bullet there, dude.

[Davesprite isn't sure of the significance of the name, though, so he shrugs.] Don't know how popular a name Hajime is in Japan, but unless your friend was a bubbly as fuck teenage girl who likes weird arts and crafts, probably not the same Hajime.

Oh, definitely not. For one thing, Hinata was a guy...and I'd hardly call him bubbly. [He chuckles.] It's not that there's anything similar, it just made me think of him.

[He'd been...pretty definitely into Hinata, after all, so maybe his reaction was a bit more excitable than someone sharing the same name as him really warranted.]

What is Neith a god of? Or goddess, I suppose. [Komaeda's learned that the perceived gender of a god - assuming the god has a concrete gender at all - has next to no relation to their Far Shore incarnation. Hajime's being a girl doesn't necessarily mean that Neith is a goddess.]

Okay, yeah, that makes more sense. The Hajime here is pretty...unique, in that way you say unique because saying super weird is rude as fuck.

[He likes Hajime and thinks she's a good goddess, but seriously. It has to be put on the table.

Davesprite's mouth twitches down a bit at the question, because he's never that great at remembering all the domains Neith has.] Way too fucking many things, but she's meant to be the creator of the universe and shit so I usually just roll with that.

You know, it's strange. You'd think there could be only one creator of the universe, and most religions I know of from Earth had their own deity or being they associated with that. I could believe that it's all the same deity, simply going by different names, but...I doubt that's what Neith is, right? I'd assume the god responsible for the existence of the universe, and thus responsible for the creation of all other gods, shinki, and human followers, would be the one in charge of everything...but I've never heard of there being one central authority in the heavens. And there's gods from every culture and religion I've ever heard of, so...are there multiple gods of creation? And what is that supposed to mean? They can't all be responsible for the same act.

Are some of the gods fake? Or are gods created by people, and not the other way around?

[That sure is some existential ramble on the nature of gods, but thankfully, Davesprite has a good head for lengthy diatribes. He goes off on them himself often enough, so he listens relatively closely to Komaeda's summation of the issues there.

And honestly agrees, because he's had similar thoughts himself. This place in general doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.] I'm pretty sure it's gods are created by people here, though don't quote me on that. But it's the only real explanation for shit like that, and how we've somehow got people still worshipping gods that should have gone bust thousands of years back when their societies did. The closest thing we have to a central authority here is Amaterasu, and even then she's not really one.

Hadn't I heard something about her temple being set on fire awhile back? [Komaeda gives Davesprite a questioning look.] I wasn't here for it, but...

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