March Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: October 25th
Where: Outside the Meeting Hall, 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 the Meeting Hall, where 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 what looks like an old, large warehouse behind the Meeting Hall for an informational meeting covering the basics of proper god behavior. Several chairs have been moved in, but they're squeezed together between packed shelves and boxes of old ritual clothing, scrolls and rusty or chipped household goods. A minor deity is giving the speech, and none of the white-robed shinki enter. 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 in the white-and-gold of Amaterasu's hosuehold 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 explanation 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.

Back copies of the "From Ama" magazine, including puff pieces about new or rising gods or successful shinki, advice columns for resolving problems between gods and shinki, temple photographs and other articles of interest to gods and shinki, have been brought out in boxes and piled up next to a table holding a few remaining copies of the shinki questionnaire for any new shinki who want to keep one around until they can answer the included questions.


What is your name?

What is your god's name?

How do you see your duties as a shinki?

What is your favorite part of life with your god?

What is your least favorite part of life with your god?

What advice would you like to give your god?

Do you wish to be assigned to a different god? []Y []N

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. Several magically animated straw-stuffed training dummies, many of which have been carefully mended and patched with neat black stitching, are set up on the lawn with a white-robed shinki hovering nearby to watch over them. They make good training partners, although anyone who comes too close risks being targeted for a sparring match whether they wanted one or not.

The white-robed shinki are still busy cleaning and preparing the Meeting Hall for the big annual meeting of the gods. They'll recruit anyone who looks as though they're not too busy in order to help scrub floors, weed, sweep paths and walkways, and shoo away any unwelcome little spirits that are hiding away in dark corners of the hall. Heavy lifting is good exercise... right?

Rest and Refreshments

There are casks of fresh, cold water near the dojo to make sure no one gets dehydrated, but for those who've finished working, hot tea and enough seasonal treats are available to make it look as though the Heavens bought out an entire sweet shop. They're being distributed by a few shinki in indigo-blue and plain brown robes with the sleeves tied back, who aren't above teasing the newcomers a bit.

Young shinki are playing in the nicely manicured garden, trying to catch crayfish at the lake edge, dashing around playing tag and hide-and-seek. Just be careful you don't get caught in the middle of a game of "Kagome"! If you do, you'll really be stuck until you guess someone's name.

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
• Enjoy a traditional tea
• Spectate if you want
• Have fun~

Comments

[unlucky7]

Do you know how many gods there are? I realize it's a shifting number due to arrivals and departures, but is there an estimate?

[The realization of having everyone gathered in the same area suddenly seems unwise. Even with all the shinki around, all the borderlines at the ready, the safeguards being set up and tested, there's no telling what could happen.

Or it could be her wary, easily unsettled self fretting over nothing. It's a gut feeling Ginia isn't quite ready to dismiss, but doesn't want to voice either.]

[revolutionfalcon]

Not as far as I know. Just from the number of temples, if we're talking about all the gods in these Heavens, it would have to be in the hundreds.

[At minimum, since it's a little hard to get a good estimate when the districts are divided as they are. Shun's wondering a little about it himself, since it's fairly widely known the newcomers aren't well trusted by the old guard.]

It'll be the first time they've called the old and new gods together on that scale. [There was the reception, but there weren't many old gods there, considering.]

[unlucky7]

[Gods, plus all their shinki, it'll be a crowded party. Ginia flicks out a few more bits of pear to the birds, eats a piece for herself. It could be a good thing, an olive branch between the old and new.

Or it could be an excuse for a party, who knows.

Ginia looks at his knife and the practiced way he uses it. She mulls a little longer before offering:]

Do you think the event will be secure?

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun's jaw tightens a little at that.] Amaterasu's going to have a lot to answer for if it isn't. They've been increasing their security since that moon viewing incident, and she spent most of the last party insisting her security was fine and getting offended when I said that didn't match what we'd seen of it. I'm hoping she won't let pride get in the way of what's important.

[And what's important is making sure they don't have yet another major gathering marred by an attack or a curse or whatever else it is they've had to deal with so far.]

[unlucky7]

Moon viewing incident?

[It's understandable there are things considered the known past of the area that get casually referenced, it still doesn't make things any less frustrating. So something did happen at some point. Time to put that next to the murders of things to research more.]

This place needs a history book.

[revolutionfalcon]

I'm working on it. Another god wrote a list of events a while ago that still gets referenced, but it's months out of date. I'm hoping I'll finish updating it in the next few weeks.

[While Izuku's list is a useful resource overall, to Shun's knowledge, it hasn't been updated since something like May or June, which means it's close to irrelevant for the newest of them who are missing several months of events they still need to find out from other people.]

Moon viewing was early last month. Someone got into the Heavens during a moon viewing and spread a spell that enhanced people's emotions.

[unlucky7]

That's promising. I'll keep an eye out for it.

[It's good to know someone is proactive enough to pick up someone else's work, especially on something so important. That it's also Shun doesn't strike her as a surprise either. She won't pretend to know him well (if at all), but something about the task seems fitting for him.]

I'm glad I missed that. What got in? Ayakashi or something else?

[revolutionfalcon]

It shouldn't be that much longer, but there was a lot of a gap to fill. [He has his own knowledge and some actual notes on things that have happened to make sure he didn't forget certain details, but it still needs to be condensed and turned into a list of a length that's not going to be wildly impractical or impossible for anyone to go through quickly.

At the question, Shun shrugs slightly.] A spirit, we think. It was a kid in a mask running around and "tagging" people, and they fell under the influence.

[unlucky7]

[A spirit. Interesting. Ginia's still working on learning the supernatural ins and outs of everything. It's easy enough when things are shinki, ayakashi, and spirits resembling animals.]

Do you know what happened to the spirit after? Do spirits like that often cause trouble?

[Nekomata and sootsprites aside. They don't cause trouble; they are trouble.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun shakes his head a little.] Usually it's ayakashi. We had some spirits stirring up trouble around Obon, but even then, it mostly wasn't anything that bad. Some of those ones are still around, because people let them stay. And as far as I know from talking to the patrol shinki, whoever it was hasn't been caught and probably left the Heavens.

[So one wonders exactly what kind of spirit it might have been, to be able to do that in the first place.]

[unlucky7]

Is it fair to say spirits are mild to moderate troublemakers while ayakashi are the real danger?

[If they're still around because people let them stay, it's already far more tolerance toward them than ayakashi. Though not being the physical manifestation of negative energy probably helps.]

Can spirits become shinki?

[revolutionfalcon]

It depends on the spirits. I'd say it's more that ayakashi can't be benign, while spirits can. But that doesn't mean there aren't dangerous spirits.

[He remembers a few particularly nasty non-ayakashi spirits among the Obon crowd, for one thing. It had been a bit of a mixed bag there between opportunistic spirits and empowered ayakashi, and neither was much better than the other.]

Shinki are supposed to be wandering spirits given a name, but I've never seen it done by a newcomer god that way.

[unlucky7]

Because we're assigned to a god at the start?

[Spirits, shinki, ayakashi, Ginia tents her fingers together and stares at the angles. Ayakashi are formed from negative emotions, but a shinki can turn into one too. How many of the larger ayakashi in the Near Shore used to be shinki? How many of the wandering spirits are waiting for a god?]

Can you clear something else up for me? Soulless shinki. Lack of a soul aside, does anything else set them apart from other shinki? How are they made?

[revolutionfalcon]

Probably. There must be some kind of connection made before we get here. [Somehow. Which is just another question to add to the steadily growing pile of them.

And speaking of that pile of questions, Shun grimaces rather obviously at her question about soulless shinki.]

A lot of people would like to know the answer to that, because a "soulless" shinki shouldn't even really be possible if you think about what shinki are. I only had one for about ten days back when I first arrived, so I only really know what everyone else knows about them.

[unlucky7]

What happened to the shinki?

[Thinking on it, Ginia doesn't remember seeing a soulless shinki around Nona's temple, even though Nona mentioned having one. Yet she was so overjoyed at having a shinki with a soul too. Ginia frowns, picking at a piece of pear.]

Why don't gods want soulless shinki?

[revolutionfalcon]

Mine? I gave her description to a god with more sympathy and he took her in. [Shun hasn't really been keeping track of what happened since he told Dokugakuji what she looked like, but he does know he apparently named her and one other from the temple.

As for the other question, he shrugs.] Most people seem to distrust them. Personally, I don't like having a shinki that won't question me. It's too much control to have over another person.

[unlucky7]

[There's no escaping the fact shinki are tools for gods, first and foremost. It's a fact Ginia's accepted and accepts readily, maybe too much at times. There was a time when she had the sense to break the leash of duty before it became a noose. Without her memories, it's harder to sort out the need to serve, the need to be useful, from the need to belong somewhere and feel safe.

Would it be easier to be a soulless shinki? Did someone make a mistake and give her feelings and desires when she should have been an empty shell made to serve? Ginia smiles reflexively at her self-deprecating thoughts, realizing a few seconds too late she's been staring off at nothing.]

I imagine most gods would prefer having a soulless shinki to no shinki at all.

[revolutionfalcon]

Most of them do, that's why you don't see them getting released constantly. But I know a lot of people prefer to let them go once they get a different shinki.

[Not everyone, certainly, but enough people that it seems to be a bit of a pattern. It's more common than it used to be to run across somebody who has a soulless as part of their team of shinki, but still not that common.

However, he didn't miss that brief lapse from Ginia, and he raisess a brow slightly.] You look distracted.

[unlucky7]

It's nothing.

[Shun carries a degree of reliability, but even that doesn't mean Ginia will voice all her thoughts to him. Her self-deprecation is her own and what she is now is what she is. However, if shinki and gods can change roles at a whim...]

Can soulless shinki gain a soul? Alternately, can a shinki like me become soulless?

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun's eyes narrow slightly in a manner that says he definitely doesn't actually believe it's nothing, but he's not one to pursue this sort of thing too hard with people he doesn't know so well. That said, he leaves it be for the moment, and Ginia's next questions are odd enough that they have his brow furrowing before too long anyway.]

Nothing like that's ever happened before that I've heard. But if we knew more about how soulless shinki are made, we'd probably know more about that too.

[unlucky7]

[Another mystery of the world. A shout goes up from a nearby group of young shinki, their game briefly dissolving into a commotion. Ginia studies the group, frowning at their perceived age.]

What about the old god's shinki? I presume they have souls, but they seem more duty bound. Testy about mentioning nora around them too. Or anything about the past.

[She pauses, sighs, and lets another thought slip.]

There are a lot of young shinki among the old gods, aren't there.

[revolutionfalcon]

They're definitely different in some ways. Apparently even hearing about other shinki learning about their pasts is a danger to them, which is why the old gods are so testy about that part. The nora thing is just traditionalism, though, as far as I can tell.

[Shun doesn't necessarily advocate nora, but he doesn't have a problem with people doing it as long as it's thought out with some sense. The only times he really considers it particularly sketchy is in instances like a while ago when someone was essentially trying to rent themselves out to gods on the BBS.

At that last observation, Shun's jaw tightens a little, though his tone is controlled when he speaks.] Children die too. I'd guess even gods have the empathy to save the wandering spirit of a child.

[unlucky7]

If they didn't, I wouldn't trust them as a god.

[Of course children die; death spares no one. And with so many shinki, it's not like all of them need to fight, if at all. Most of them seem happy. But they're still children. Mostly, it's a sobering thing to consider.]

Are there any kids among the new gods or shinki? Everyone seems like a teen or up. [Ginia pauses, frowning.] A lot of teens, actually.

[revolutionfalcon]

Neither would I. [Shun's response is immediate and blunt. He's seen too many kids fall to war to be sympathetic to anyone who wouldn't care for a wandering child's spirit.

Shun glances over at Ginia's remark about the teens, shrugging a little.] As long as most of the teens are competent enough to hold their own, I don't see the problem. But for kids, there's Nanako, who's seven and a god. And a kid shinki named Goten or something who's been around for a while.