December Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: September 25th
Where: Bishamon's temple, the Far Shore
Summary: Training and informational sessions for newly arrived gods and shinki



Gods and shinki arriving at heaven's meeting hall are, should they allow it, guided to Bishamon's temple, where a reception area and a traditionally styled dojo and training ground have been made available for the day. The gods and shinki are free to take their time during this day to learn about the details of their new life from Amaterasu's shinki or from the many veteran new god and shinki volunteers.




God Training

Newly arrived gods are escorted into a Western-styled reception hall within Bishamon's temple for an informational meeting covering the basics of proper god behavior, although the minor deity conducting the meeting is in too much of a rush to take questions afterwards. They are encouraged to discuss the information with each other and ask questions of more experienced gods, as well as instructed to guide their new shinki appropriately.

Shinki Training

Various shinki volunteers, both in the white-and-gold of Amaterasu's shinki and in Bishamon's red-piped black uniforms, are stationed around the dojo, passing out helpful informational pamphlets. They will be happy to instruct the newcomers in the use of the borderline as well as offering an explanantion on the basics of what is expected of a shinki and the importance of teamwork with other shinki and with gods. Shinki are encouraged to work together to practice what they've learned and discuss their perspectives.

Someone has brought two overflowing boxes of back issues of From Ama, the Heavenly magazine, which includes profiles of successful shinki and gods, historical tidbits, and the occasional magazine quiz to help shinki determine how well they're currently working with their god or what their greatest strength might be.

Physical Training

The dojo is stocked with a wide variety of practice weapons, traditional and modern, to offer some practice opportunity to gods who, for example, find themselves with a sword shinki but are at risk of cutting off their own toes. It's also useful for veteran new gods wishing to train with their current partner shinki.

This month, a clever shinki magician has created a dozen straw-stuffed training dummies, some with sword-length sticks and some with polearm-length sticks, that have been enchanted to really fight back. Unfortunately, the spell isn't perfect yet! They're good training partners, but sometimes they might go a little haywire and try to smack passersby.

Rest and Refreshments

Along with bottled water, there are several large boxes of energy drinks and vitamin drinks in small amber glass bottles, and an array of protein bars and meal bars. One particular shinki in white, a bespectacled twentysomething man, is explaining the health benefits of everything on the table (even the water!) with great enthusiasm to any guest who looks even a little confused. It takes great tact to discourage him.

Party games have been set up on the lawn near the refreshments table: Twister, Kubb, lawn Jenga, and more.

In Summary:

• Get all the information you can handle
• Veteran new gods and shinki are welcome to volunteer showing the ropes
• Get in some training
• Play some games
• Spectate if you want
• Have fun~

Comments

[killsthebuddha]

[ Something about her tone braces him up. He’s got a lifetime of experience in keeping his own personal tragedies just that, and he’ll have time for it to haunt him later. More than that, business comes first.

Still, the color isn’t coming back to his skin any time soon. ]

What happened with Ukoku is a dead end. [ It’s a snap decision, but it lets him go forward. ] Maten isn’t the right choice for undoing a divine spell, so I’m more interested in who affects us now.

[ He’s had to have made enemies by now, right? ]

[bussounoshima]

[Genjo's strong. Sharak knows he can manage his personal trauma. They don't need to dwell on it any longer than they have to and if he doesn't want to ask for details, Sharak isn't inclined to give them. It's in the past.]

I didn't think it was. [Kouten has been running in the background at the Temple of Aditi for months now, with no apparent effects. Kainé and Gojyo barely remembered anything at all while they were here, compared to others, and Celty and Goten haven't shown any signs of remembering at all.] Unfortunately, I can't give you much information regarding who else we're dealing with right now.

[But she'll lay out what she does know.]

There's a spellcaster- probably a god, considering their access to heaven- that's been doing work with souls. There was an incident a while ago where a bunch of spirits were made to possess corpses and forced to attack us. Some of them were recognisable to people here. When I arrived there was another incident where a summoning circle was placed in the center of a town and it seemed to sap energy from the people there. Hakkai and I found some... crop circles in the Near Shore that were covered in blight, which may be connected.

There have been other incidents as well, traps that altered moods mostly. A few arsons, which seemed to target Amaterasu particularly and were either very poor attempts to rally us against her or very good attempts to rally us for her. [Either someone is very bad at managing propaganda or they know how to make a cute girl look even more defenceless and pitiful.] We mostly interact with the Shinto pantheon; Amaterasu and her advisors are the most willing to speak to us. The others are around though. The Hindu and Vedic pantheons mostly keep to themselves, for example, but I've spoken to a few of Aditi's sons.

[tl;dr]

[killsthebuddha]

[ For the moment, Genjo just listens and absorbs the information. There’s a lot going on there, and he has to wonder how much of it was entirely accurate given the fact that no one could really rely on their memory. The idea of some god fucking with their heads like that...

Well, he hasn’t killed a god yet. That doesn’t mean he can’t. ]

Gods are a real pain in the ass. [ It’s a perfectly reasonable statement, he thinks, that sums the information up nicely. He hesitates before speaking again, more searching for wording than anything. ] Has there been any sign of the Merciful Goddess?

[ He doesn’t really want to bring that topic up, but it can’t be avoided. ]

[bussounoshima]

[It's been a hell of a couple of months, Genjo. That was the abridged version.]

You won't catch me disagreeing. [Gods Are Annoying, the Saiyuki story.] I've seen no signs of the Merciful Goddess from our world, no, though I've heard the name. [Now it's Sharak's turn to hesitate, briefly.] A woman was here who was given hir role, but she definitely wasn't hir.

[The next hesitation is more like an actual pause. This is a fucking weird topic and Genjo has no idea why.]

Hir nephew was here, for a time. He didn't seem to know any more than the rest of us.

[killsthebuddha]

It’s not like we could expect any of them to be useful. [ He’s feeling about as burned out as his cigarette, at this point. He wants to cover more, delve into details, but this isn’t going to be some short term thing and he doubts he can contribute much right now. It’s starting to sound like they’ve covered all the parts that actually affect them. ]

If that’s where we’re at, I should start rounding up my team. The longer I take, the stupider their choices will get.

[bussounoshima]

[Sharak lets out a breath and nods. She's okay with swiftly moving on from that topic. Genjo's life (lives) is fucking weird.]

You may as well get started.

[Sure, he's heavily injured and in need of rest but. Well. Passing out on Gojyo and needing to be rescued is probably the best way to make friends with him anyway.]

People tend to at least stop by Bishamon's temple at this time, even if they're not new themselves. It's a good way to stay up to date on who's around.

[So. Start there?]