thenearshore | 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

I haven't ever really had the chance to go through a haunted house before, and not have it tamed down because nopony wants to scare the princess. [Celestia rolls her eyes at this, if fondly. Her little ponies are darling, but occasionally insensitive to what she actually wants.] Now I actually can!

[Royalty life such bewildering lives.... Chikusa can't even imagine it happening to the gods here, although that might be partially because other gods are also regularly partaking of the pasttime of "fucking with each other" and some shinki are just straight up irreverent.]

[Not that he'd know anything about that second bit.]

...Are you sure it'll live up to your expectations?

My expectations are that I won't be treated like a Princess in here, in need of grace and respect and constant caution. I think they'll manage that much! [Celestia doesn't look particularly old, per se, but she has a certain air of timeless grace about her which vanishes when she grins her brightest.]

...I guess so.

[It's not really something he can argue against, so Chikusa shrugs.]

Are you scared often...?

Less so these days than I have been in the past. And not often here in the Far Shore. Having less responsibility is liberating.

[Being a god is SO much less work than being a Princess.]

...I guess we'll see if you get scared, then.

[If she's not scared much now, he's not sure how this will help, but whatever. He's in this for the AC.]

We really will!

[There's scared and then there's scared, and Celestia has lowered her guard and suspension of disbelief very low indeed to achieve the more harmless of the two. She almost drags Chikusa in through the door, before she remembers some semblance of decorum and just hurries in herself with an urgent look back. Come on!]

[Really, she'd have better luck actually dragging him at the pace he goes at, but he does make it through the door eventually. With all of the dim and spooky decorations strung around, he has to duck his head a little so that he doesn't smack into any of them.]

....I didn't consider this...

[He isn't the only one ducking; Celestia's human form is no shorter than his. Still, a sense of claustrophobia is important, right?]

[No sooner do they get fully inside than the door bangs violently shut behind them, startling a jump out of Celestia.]

[Whoa- he raises a hand quietly in a sort of 'relax' gesture.]

...It was the door...

I know, but it was unexpected! How did you expect it? [She puts her hands on her hips to pout at him, in a way that very much is not the ancient wise serene pony fashion. She's really getting into this -- how rarely does she actually get to let her mane down, after all?]

Ah....

[Just an awkward pause, because he's not sure how to respond to a pony princess that he's both dead inside and was expecting startling things to just... happen. After a second, he points ahead.]

Do you want to keep going...?

We've just barely started. [A hint of her proper mature self creeps back into her voice and her smile as she regards him.] Come, let us move on.

Alright...

[He starts to shuffle along with her, making sure not to hit his head on anything. It's a fairly standard haunted house, the lighting dim and the place claustrophobic as fake cobwebs are strung out everywhere and gravemarkers are placed everywhere.]

[Celestia makes a mental note to try to help him lighten up as she ducks beneath a low-hanging cobweb or two and heads down the hallways. They don't get far before a pair of lights like wicked eyes shine out from a patch of darkness just as they pass it.]

[Godspeed, Celestia. Chikusa is an almost stubbornly emotionless individual sometimes.... Outdone occasionally by his occasional desire to be a shit.]

[So don't mind him poking you in the side shortly after those eyes pop up, Celestia.]

018 | Season Spirits

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