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

[bussounoshima]

When I get a hold of your shinki I'm telling her to tie you to your damn bed.

[She suspects it's the only way he'll stay there. Ayumu seemed sensible. Sharak looks through the box she brought over and takes out a small container of pills.]

These should help with the aches and hopefully the fever. I'm sure you've got stuff at the temple of medicine but for the time being...

[Of course, if Hakkai remembers his last encounter with Kouten Brigade medicine, maybe he'll want to just suffer quietly until he gets home. She blinks and makes eye contact with Hakkai again.]

I do. Why?

[reformedsinner]

[Ayumu would be all too happy to obey that suggestion, Hakkai thinks, and laughs again as he holds a hand out for the pills. He remembers his last encounter with Sharak's idea of medicine, all right. Vile as it had been, it had been effective.

Her question is less appealing, but he tries on a thin smile and refuses to allow himself to hesitate.]

I may owe that person an apology.

[bussounoshima]

[Sharak gives him two pills. They'll taste just as- if not more- vile as the altitude sickness medicine, because Sharak believes a distraction from pain is as good as a cure.]

Only may? [That smile just seems stupid under the circumstances, Sharak thinks. She shakes her head.] Gojyo asked me to name him after Ekko died.

[So if he wants to apologise for something, here she is.]

[reformedsinner]

Oh. [He hadn't even thought of that, and he's honestly not sure why. He takes the pills and swallows them, dry, without a flinch as the acrid aftertaste settles in for a long stay.]

I see.

[He trusts her medication will be effective, but it's likely to take a while to be effective enough for him to make it back home, so he settles back down again, wetting his lips.

(That aftertaste really lingers.)]

He helped me back home earlier -- I wasn't feeling well -- and met Asshole. It seems soulless shinki remember old gods....

And they knew each other once. Were friends. Before I met him, at home. [Ugh; resting or not, lengthy conversation is still taxing his mind and his throat. He swallows, marshals himself and continues.]

I was afraid... he'd start to ask himself. Dangerous questions. So I hinted to him he'd been here, as our god. I'd seen shinki learn that before with. No ill effects.

[He trails off again. Sharak will know that Gojyo'd blighted her, and now she knows why.]

But... it blighted him. Only a little; I don't know if it's the knowledge, or....

[Or his own anger at the person he thinks he's been. The person Gojyo assumes was irredeemable, because he'd lived a hard life-- Hakkai realizes he's scowling, and hastily smooths his features back to calm.]

[bussounoshima]

[Once Ayumu answers her text asking where she is, Sharak will take him home herself, or something. It'll work itself out, don't worry.]

I think I remember that. [The stab of blight. She hadn't thought much of it at the time. Kainé and Genjo would cause occasional incidents like that and it wouldn't even be worth mentioning.] It didn't feel that bad.

[For whatever that's worse. It's hard to make an accurate scale to tell what caused what, especially when Sanzo's the one judging the severity.]

That Tsuzuki said he didn't feel anything when he was told. He seemed fine talking about it and thinking about it as well.

[Over the network, sure, but what was there to gain by lying? He'd only endanger other shinki.]

[reformedsinner]

He did. It's why I thought... 'it might be safe.'

[Safer than letting Gojyo wonder why the two full youkai here both acted as though they knew him, at least. Hakkai knows he's given enough away that Gojyo knows, and Asshole doesn't have enough understanding not to give it away himself.

But if it didn't feel that bad, then perhaps it's not the blight of a memory after all. Hakkai closes his eyes, questioning his memory.]

Safer....

I didn't say directly, 'It was you.' But he made the jump himself, and started asking questions. When I was a shinki... it was hard. To think about that, to ask about it. Maybe he just felt bad.

[bussounoshima]

... Whenever I even thought about mentioning anything to you or the others, I felt like something terrible was about to happen. Made talking with Genjo a real pain in the ass sometimes.

[With Hakkai and Goku it was easy to just flat out pretend she knew nothing about them. With Genjo that was a little too unbelievable, even for a shinki.]

With Gojyo... Even when he was a god, he had gaps in his memory. We could talk about them just fine though. [No blight, obviously, but also no sense of dread or danger. Sharak crosses her arms and taps her finger on her arm in frustration.] Maybe he did just feel guilty over something.

[Maybe.]

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai makes a soft sound of assent. Maybe. He can't tell if Sharak's medicine is taking effect, or if it's just the quiet and the glass of water that are helping. His head still pounds, but he can think.

The problem is that there's no way to simply out-think this problem. Any test would be unforgivably dangerous. Leaving it as it is... is dangerous, too.]

I feel that, too. But not this time.

[That sense of cold terror -- he'd felt it as a shinki, too, but it's more acute as a god. Perhaps it's because he's not the one at risk now. It's oddly reassuring to hear that the fear he feels now isn't just his own concern about hurting his best friend. It might not mean anything, in the end, but at least it's something.]