31 - First Shrine Visit

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: It's the New Year, and gods are traveling to their shrines to listen to their followers' prayers for good fortune in the upcoming year.
When: Jan 1 - 3
Where: Places of worship throughout Japan
Summary: The first shrine visit of the year is vital! Followers are flooding into everyone's shrines to have their fortunes told, buy good luck charms, and get things in order for the new year. Get the new year started on a positive note by giving the faithful a hand with their requests.






Shrine Visits

New and old gods alike have places of worship somewhere in Japan, places for their worshipers to go and leave both offerings and prayers. Although most of the new gods reside in their homes in the Far Shore, their places of worship in the mortal world need some attention, too! Whatever those shrines look like -- and however large or small they might be -- it's time to head there and prepare to receive the first faithful visitors of the new year. The crowds are full of followers looking to buy fortunes, leave prayers, get good-luck charms, and bring offerings to their gods in thanks for past good luck and hope for more.

Most of the visitors seem to know what they're doing, but some may need a hand. Translate for tourists, reunite lost children with their families, point out the bathrooms and scare off any ayakashi that sneak too close to the shrine gates.

Gods and shinki can take this opportunity to drop by their friends' shrines, too, whether it's to help with the rush, bring some tasty New Year bento, or just say hello.

Prayers

Some of the followers stopping by the shrines at this time of year have special requests in mind, and they're picking shrines with care. A god of funerals might find a follower asking for help keeping their family grave in good condition, while a god of the harvest might be asked to help keep a windowsill herb garden alive when the apartment heat has gone out. Big requests or small, meaningful or silly, these are the special prayers of a god's most devoted followers, so it's important to help out.

(For this prompt, you can create prayers that your character or your character's god might have received! The same prayer can be used for more than one thread if you wish, and characters do not necessarily have to be working with their god or their shinki -- groups of two gods, two shinki, or a god and shinki who aren't paired up are perfectly OK.)

Special Offerings

Most of the shrine visitors bring offerings of money, but sometimes, gratitude to the gods takes a more idiosyncratic turn. Five-yen coins are great (and they add up!) Food tastes great, and besides, shinki never get full. But what can you do with some of these weirder gifts? Who brought Athena's shrine that pile of cute plush owls? Why is there a tiger-skin rug on Bastet's altar? They all suit the gods they're being given to, but it's going to be a pain to figure out where to put these all!

Maybe some of them can be re-gifted?

Great Misfortune

Even the small shrines are bustling this time of year. Gods, shinki, and mortal priests alike have to hustle to keep up with the demand. It's hard to keep an eye on everyone visiting, but they're all faithful followers anyway... aren't they?

Maybe not. Some shrines, belonging to new and old gods alike, are experiencing a sudden increase in misfortune. Ropes break, wood splinters, metal rusts, statues fall over, visitors fall ill, pipes break and appliances malfunction. This isn't just normal wear and tear from the crowds. Someone seems to have cast a curse on the shrines, right at the busy time of year! What will this do to their reputation? Gods and shinki will need to work together to uncover the hidden curse charms at these unlucky shrines before their followers start to think that this isn't the right place to ask for good fortune.

Not every shrine will suffer this curse of misfortune, but at those that do, characters who search with care will be able to discover one or more hidden fabric packets containing a paper with a bad-luck spell and some mysterious characters written on it. Burning the packet and the paper will end the bad luck, and taking it out of the shrine will transfer the bad luck to wherever it goes.

In Summary:

• Head to shrines on the Near Shore to spend the first days of the new year
• Help the faithful out by answering their prayers
• Find something to do with the more unusual offerings
• Prevent your shrine from being cursed with bad luck
• Have fun~

Comments

[trademark_skull]

...Actually.

[Kind of wondering if he should say anything.]

I don't think it's normally cause by of bad luck so much.

[Unless bad luck means what god type he got rolled into.]

[revolutionfalcon]

Unless you think someone is intentionally sabotaging your shrine, then it probably still falls under bad luck.

[Even if it's not an actual bad luck curse like the one going around here. Shun hasn't heard of other death gods having issues, so it doesn't even remotely occur to him that domain might be a cause for it.]

[trademark_skull]

[Emizel wondered.]

Humans don't think I only help the dead, but also cause them.

Some of them have problems with that.

[revolutionfalcon]

[That gets a rather flat look from Shun.] They're idiots, then. I'm a funerary god, and I've never had that kind of problem myself. But if it bothers you that much, then find a way to scare them off. Most people who'll do things like that are weak-minded anyway.

[Shun doesn't typically think much of petty criminals, because he's met too many to have a high opinion.]

[trademark_skull]

If I could catch them doing it...

...

Well, someone did say I should try smiting bad followers.

[And he probably should! Maybe?]

[revolutionfalcon]

[That just gets a lengthy side-eying from Shun, because he feels like he shouldn't need to point out the obvious there.]

Smiting them is just going to prove the others' point and make the problem worse when the knowledge spreads.

[Confirming the rumours by killing problematic followers seems like a Bad Idea in this situation.]

[trademark_skull]

[Well... N-no! Because he would only be targeting the ones that oppose him, and perhaps threaten his other followers. It'll prove that he only helps those that treat him kindly. ...Or in the case of bad prayers, those who are morally sound.]

[...Should he have mentioned that it was Hakkai's idea?]

Well...by that point they should know when to quit it!

[revolutionfalcon]

If you can't make them stop with any less than that, then you're incompetent as more than just a god.

[Shun puts that extremely bluntly. While he's not averse to doing that sort of thing when necessary, going that far on people who are essentially just being stupid and provocative doesn't fall under his definition of "necessary".]

[trademark_skull]

[Pout.] You'll be surprised at just how persistent humans can be.

[revolutionfalcon]

I am a human. I'm plenty familiar with how persistent humans can be.

[Shun is one of the most persistent humans on the face of his planet, honestly, so Emizel's preaching to the choir here.] But nobody with a character worth priding themselves on is going to be pettily vandalising a shrine.

[trademark_skull]

[Well if they lack that amount of capacity, they probably aren't worth keeping around for other reasons anyway. But he'll digress.] Well I still need to threaten them somehow to scare them. So what difference does it make?

[revolutionfalcon]

Why don't you try saying "what's the difference between whether I threaten them or kill them" to yourself a few times and figure it out from there?

[Shun's tone is drier and more devoid of pity than your average desert right about now.]

[trademark_skull]

Who said anything about killing them?

[revolutionfalcon]

[There's the crossed wires. Shun gives a rather irritable sigh.]

Gods aren't known for leaving people alive after they're done with their smiting. It's usually not the point, so if you start talking about "smiting", people are going to assume you mean murder.

[Or at least grievous bodily harm, which still seems unnecessary here.]

[trademark_skull]

[Fine, whatever you call it.] Although...

If that is the way how gods used it before, then that means it is effective right?

[revolutionfalcon]

You're saying this to the person who killed the last guy we had in the Heavens who started indiscriminately murdering people.

[Fair warning, Emizel. Shun doesn't typically tolerate that sort of thing regardless of reasoning.]

[trademark_skull]

[Why do you always have to jump to the worst things? ...No wonder you have no friends.] It's not indiscriminate if it's only going after the ones that mess you up. And what does this have anything to do with a god killer?

And like...other demons have always had to do it too. You can't just politely ask or tell a human "no" and expect them to listen. ...Even if you just pretend to hurt them, they'll eventually figure out there's nothing to be afraid of.

[Emizel thought about it, a little more seriously. Worried.] It could..it could be the reason why I even have this problem now. I already failed.

[revolutionfalcon]

If you consider vandalism "messing you up", it's still indiscriminate. [Having standards that low, it's no different, as far as Shun is concerned.

He's definitely not here to spare Emizel's feelings, though, concern or not, and he gives him a rather lengthy, unimpressed look.]

So what you're saying is you've given up on anything but the most ridiculous, needlessly violent outcome working. You're acting like all humans are some irrepressible force of will instead of a huge chunk of them being idiots who don't take two seconds more to think about something than they need to. Which is ironic considering how you're acting.

[Emizel may not have signed up for a verbal tear-down, but that's exactly what he's getting.] If you can't understand the concept of abusing power, then I might as well not be talking to you.

[trademark_skull]

[If he thinks doing that is going to change Emizel's mind somehow. ...Sadly, it was not.] ...Vandalism, and having give my followers even more work to do. I should be doing it more for them than myself. This shrine would be even worse without them.

[A righteous beat down so happens to benefit them both. So you know, why not go for it? Though it's a shame that Emizel even had to spell that out.]

You still don't believe me? Fine. I won't bother trying to explain it to you if it's not worth the time. You don't seem to understand it anyway.

[revolutionfalcon]

Or you could maintain your own damn shrine instead of leaving it to them and whining about how it's everyone else's fault. [Shun visits his shrines and maintains the multitude of flower arrangements daily despite being a God of Fortune, so he's got approximately zero patience for those kinds of excuses.

It seems they're agreed on the fact that this conversation isn't going to go anywhere productive, anyway, so Shun shrugs and turns on his heel, speaking to Emizel over his shoulder as he starts to head off.] I don't understand blaming everyone else for your own failures, no. I don't want to understand people like that.