27 - The Gods' Meeting

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: The Meeting of the Gods is here at last.
When: October 30
Where: Heaven's Meeting Hall
Summary:







Pre-Meeting

Guards at the front door are carefully checking each god who enters off on their list of attendees, and taking the names of each of their shinki attendants.

Once the participants are past the doors, they are guided down the hallway to a huge meeting room by one of the guards, who will announce them by divine title, and each of their shinki by whatever name they gave. It's an open question as to who's actually listening, though, because the room is swiftly filling up with gods and shinki. As well as the newcomers, old gods are here, some in human form attended by their uniformed shinki, others in stranger shapes -- giant bears, round-bellied tanuki, turtles, dragons, and more. There's even one tricolored tabby cat in a small blue cap, seated majestically in the arms of a uniformed shinki and chatting with another god.

Buffet tables bearing every kind of food and drink imaginable are set up at one end of the room, and a dais with a podium is at the other, draped in bright gold and white bunting and emblazoned with a chrysanthemum emblem.

Early Announcements

Finally, the socialization comes to an end, and the meeting itself begins as Ookuninushi grabs the microphone and steps up to the podium. The year's most popular gods are named first: Hotei, one of the Seven Gods of Fortune, is in third place, Tenjin in second and Ebisu in first place. Each steps up to bow and accept their accolades in turn: Hotei is a big man with a wide smile, Tenjin a tall, ascetic man wearing old robes and concealing his smug expression behind a fan, and a tired-looking younger man in a business suit announces himself as representing Ebisu, who is watching over the Near Shore during the event.

Next, the most popular new god is announced: Ookuninushi has to stop and wrinkle his nose at the name for several seconds before he pronounces it-- Nekhbet, a new arrival in the Heavens.

He moves on to call for a moment of silence recognizing the difficulties of the last year. Many gods have faced reincarnation and returned wearing unfamiliar faces! The Heavens can't yet explain the cause of these changes, but Amaterasu herself urges them to welcome their friends' new incarnations as brothers and sisters in the Heavens.

His final announcement is that, after the successful resolution of the trouble associated with some recent deaths, Orihime has been restored to her place among the eight million gods.

Fortune Weaving

Announcements finished, the main activity of the evening begins. The white-robed shinki bring in huge baskets filled with wooden prayer plaques, setting them down all around the room, and the gods begin to form into circles around each basket. The older gods will gladly explain to any confused newcomers that they're weaving fortunate connections between mortal lives as they spread the plaques out and tie strings off together with great care. All the plaques have names written on them; some are filled out with prayers, some just with notes, and others adorned with pictures of flowers, animals or favorite characters.

Gods and shinki are given blank plaques to inscribe with their own names, too, in order to give them the chance to make fortunate connections as well. (Not necessarily romantic, the other gods will assure them! There are many different kinds of fated connection.)

Help out, take the opportunity to chat, and make some fortunate matches for yourself as well as these hard-working petitioners.

Midnight Disaster

Just shy of midnight, while the gods are still matching up plaques, finishing the last of the banquet, and getting into drunken arguments over who to connect to whom, a shinki in a dark suit torn at the shoulder comes dashing into the Meeting Hall.

"Calamity!" he cries-- and tells the assembled Heavens that a mysterious blight has fallen across a sleepy residential community in the Tokyo suburbs. The blight, a huge circle covering about two blocks, is sucking the life out of everything inside it: plants are wilting, and people and animals have fallen into deathly slumber. As if that weren't bad enough, it's also attracting big, dangerous ayakashi. Ebisu and his shinki are there now, but there aren't enough of them to fight the ayakashi and move the people trapped inside the blighted circle to a safer place before they die.

Volunteers will need to fight ayakashi and rescue the mortals trapped in the blight -- once they're outside its edge, they'll begin to wake up and recover on their own.

In Summary:

• Enjoy the banquet before the announcements
• Hear about the most popular gods
• Help make fortunate connections for the living
• Respond to a disaster
• Have fun~

Comments

fortune weaving

[death_glare]

Honestly. You are far more organized than I would ever expect a demon to be.

[ Why he keeps coming up to talk with Emizel, one may never know. Perhaps he's slowly learning to trust the kid. ]

[trademark_skull]

[And also giving out compliments to demons. Who are you and what did you do to William?]

Hmm, I've heard that being neat makes you more successful.

[So he needs lots of it!]

[death_glare]

[ Kind of a backwards compliment. Praising him but still super judgmental to demons as a whole. ]

It certainly helps. However, spending all of your time organizing while avoiding the actual task at hand does not.

[ And now he's judging you for taking too long anyway. ]

[trademark_skull]

[Emizel pouts a little by folding his arms.]

I know...but I can't decide which ones to connect to.

[At least he was being honest.]

[death_glare]

Do what is logical.

[ Duh. Must dad teach you everything, Emizel? ]

[trademark_skull]

I dunno what is logical!

[Have you taught him anything?]

[death_glare]

If you have all your prayers and individuals separated, try matching them up. Honestly.

[ Yes. That demons are icky. ]

[trademark_skull]

[I think that's just a bias.]

[...But William does have a pretty good point about tying what piles he does have together. Even though Emizel had thought of that before.]

How would I know if they would get along though?

[death_glare]

[ With a huff, William grabs one from each pile, reading the names and prayers written upon them. He's had enough experience watching the cinematic records of mortals that he's well versed in the way events shape a person's life. He hands two back to Emizel. The names seem to have no relation, but the prayers written beneath them are very similar. ]

Tie these two together.

[ He leaves off why for now. Let's see if Emizel can figure it out on his own. ]

[trademark_skull]

[He takes the two plagues and read what's on them again. But, if William really thinks they were a match, he will (somewhat begrudgingly) go along with it. It is possible nothing too bad might happen though.]

I-if you say so.

[Carefully Emizel ties them with a red string. He tries his best to make it look nice, but it is a somewhat crude weave. Not enough practice perfecting this kind of thing yet.]

[death_glare]

Do you understand why?

[ Quiz time! Don't be nervous, Emi. At least William's not being super rude for once. ]

[trademark_skull]

....It's because of the prayers, right? They both were looking to meet someone.