December Announcements

[godsoffortune]

December Announcements

Here we are again, bringing you the news of Near and Far Shore events for the month of December!



Happenings

The Near Shore

September is coming to an end, and the very first leaves are beginning to yellow as October approaches. Students are back in the swing of their school life and studying hard, and roast chestnut vendors are beginning to pop up here and there on the Tokyo streets.

• Watch your step! Enterprising crows have gone beyond just pushing chestnuts into the streets to have their hard, spiny cases cracked by passing cars. Now they're dropping them all over the place, and those chestnuts are extremely spiny.


• Ikebukuro has a mysterious graffiti artist. He, or she, is leaving satirical stenciled artwork all over town! The kids think it's pretty cool, and the culture magazines are longing for an interview, but the local businesses aren't so thrilled about all the repainting and scrubbing they're having to pay for.


• Tensions are high in a particular Tokyo high-rise. Someone in the building keeps putting the wrong type of garbage out on the wrong day. Neighbor suspects neighbor! The strife is even bringing down ayakashi on the building. These people need some help.

The Far Shore

Although leaves are just starting to turn on the Near Shore, the Far Shore's trees are still lush and verdant. The heat wave is now long gone, and the atmosphere is back to its usual peace and calm.

• The volcano's eruption has come to an end. Although there are still new lines of hardening lava streaking its sides, there is no longer a glow at night, and the sulfur and ash have all cleared away.


• White-robed shinki continue to patrol the streets and even the narrower, more distant and winding paths of the Heavens. They seem alert and suspicious, but if questioned, only insist that they are "doing their duty."


• The koi have given up their game of splashing passersby. Instead, they are reciting poetry from the surface of the water, and asking for payment in fish food. Some of the poems are classical, but others are personally tailored, covering everything from commentary on their listener's fashion sense to insightful life advice.

Noteworthy Ayakashi

• Crow ayakashi are congregating along eaves and gutters to look down at the crowds of people below. Their croaking voices urge mortal humans to climb up and join them -- but rooftops aren't as friendly to humans as they are to something with wings.


• Public subway and railway toilets throughout the Tokyo metro area are growing choked with licking ayakashi. Their wet tongues leave mold and stains behind all over the walls and floors, and they even lick the ankles of luckless humans trying to use the toilets. How gross!

Weather

Here you can see the weather starting on September 1.

Event

Crazy Cat Shuffle

The super-popular Crazy Cat mascot keychains are all over Tokyo. They're expensive and only sold in capsule machines, so the rarest styles are extra hard to find. Fans are starting to behave very badly over the styles they most want! Theft, fistfights, and even a small riot have broken out over bad capsule machine luck so far, and ayakashi are gathering around the ill-fated machines.

Now, it's up to the gods and their shinki to help clear out the ayakashi and protect the eager fans before someone really gets hurt.
• IC Date: September 20
• If you have any questions, feel free to reply to the comment marked 'Event' on this post.
• To participate in the event, you will just need to comment to the event log after it goes up on December 1 at 7PM EST.

Past Happenings in the Heavens

Major Events

July Announcements	August Announcements	September Announcements
October Announcements	November Announcements

• Last month on September 10th, the Heavens' moon viewing party was disturbed by the effects of a clumsy young boy in a rabbit mask, whose touch seemed to intensify emotions and dissolve inhibitions wherever he went.
• On September 15th, new arrivals were brought to Bishamon's temple for orientation and training, as well as a scavenger hunt.

Player Plots

If your characters have been up to anything this month that other characters may have noticed -- parties, ayakashi attacks, violent rampages through the Far Shore -- leave a comment on this post to let your fellow players know what's going on!

Monthly Tag Counts
New! Total Points vs. Available Points

As prayers and missions have expanded, we received feedback that it would be very difficult to qualify for prayers/missions with higher minimums if players were also being encouraged to use the Regains to cash in those same points. Well, we mods agreed with you! So we've split Points out into two categories: Total and Available.


• TOTAL is now all of the points your character has accumulated over the course of the game. This will be the number that qualifies your character for minimums on the Prayers/Missions page.*


• AVAILABLE is now the points that have not been used for Regains. When a Regain is processed, it will reduce your character's Available points, but not their Total points.


*For this month only, you will notice an extra column on the Monthly Tag Counts. The number in "Regain Return" will help us with the bookkeeping of returning points to players who have done regains, to calculate their "Total" points. Once that is set, the Regain Return column will be removed.

Going forward, the two numbers for players to check will be Total and Available points. These numbers will be used not only for Prayers and Regains, but for future options that we're still considering. Please look forward to it!

All of a player's activity, prayer bonuses, event bonuses and everything will boost both numbers! The only thing that will ever go down is your Available number when you redeem them for something.

We hope this update will improve everyone's experience with the game!

Side Note: Prayers/Missions have had all of their expired ones cleared out. New ones will appear later this week so if you have any suggestions, by all means submit them!
In other suggestions that have come to us, we're also working on NPC short bios/contact, as well as a large update to the FAQ and 101s. We hope you'll look forward to it!

Comments

[kokuyoyo]

Can the white-robed shinki be eavesdropped on and/or stalked?

[godsoffortune]

While we see no reason to prevent stalking, what sort of information are you looking for with eavesdropping?

[kokuyoyo]

Basically:

- the reason behind these patrols
- the actions/state of these shinkis' god/s (ex. if fuujin is more worked up than usual or something)
- if they're looking for anything in particular
- further patrol plans (like if there's a particular schedule or areas they plan on covering, etc)

tldr plot stuff i suppose lmao, although if Shinki A's anniversary with Shinki B is coming up, i'm game for that being overheard too lmao

[godsoffortune]

The shinki stay largely quiet and alert while they are patrolling, and will tend to notice and confront stalkers who are too determined (so, for instance, if a shinki catches sight of the same new shinki following them several times while patrolling, they might pull said new shinki aside and tell them to go about their god's business and stop being nosy.)

However, it's certainly possible for them to be followed or eavesdropped on, with caution. Especially on hand-offs of patrols, they'll discuss what they're looking for and what they've seen (mostly "Nothing," with -- as the days go by -- the occasional "Are they sure there's someone out there?")

From the snippets of conversation overheard, it's possible to determine:

- that they're looking for one (or more) specific individuals.
- that it's a specific individual who should not be in the Heavens.
- that the information about there being someone of that sort around came from another source, of a higher rank, but that they are dubious about its reliability, since they haven't personally seen evidence or found anyone who shouldn't be in the Heavens.
- basic patrol schedules (there are shifts day and night, and they're primarily focusing on the Central District and the Heavens, not going out into the Western District or too far to the north or south.)

[kokuyoyo]

SO CHIKUSA HAS A DOG...

Yes, this is about Ken Joshima again. Chikusa (and Ayumu, this is becoming a family affair) might use the blond's enhanced sense of smell while stalking the patrols.

This will initially be to see if they can catch Hakkai's scent on anyone (which we know they won't, this is just a mistake), but they'll also see if:

- the smell on the patrol matches a certain temple
- they can follow their scent trail back to their temple

whichever turns out to be easiest

[welcome_home]

I'm a little confused about the dates here for the event! The Calendar has us listed as going into September 18th currently, with December 1st = September 20? I thought October wasn't happening till January or is the calendar off somewhere?

[godsoffortune]

The Google Calendar was correct! We forgot to update the event dates to the current month. Sorry about that! It's been corrected.

2 Swords of Damocles

[mostsuitable]

This happened over the Western District in the Far Shore on the night of IC! September 7, but I didn't know where else to put it. So I figured I'll just mention it here since that's something pretty difficult to miss given Swords' sizes and massive energy.

[priforprince]

For things like qualifying for God of Fortune, Hafuri, or moving a temple, will available points or total points be taken into account?

[godsoffortune]

We've agreed that God of Fortune and Hafuri qualification, as well as moving a temple, will run off the Total points and will update the appropriate pages shortly.

[priforprince]

Good to know; thank you!

[revolutionfalcon]

In a similar vein to the above question, would a shinki's capability to participate in ablutions be judged by available or total points, since iirc they were supposed to have 1000+ EXP to be strong enough to hold up for one?

[godsoffortune]

Yes, Ablutions will also use the Total number to consider the shinki strong enough to hold one up.

We will make sure this is clear in our expansion of learning advanced spells, which Ablutions will fall under once that is done.

Clinic set up!

[festal]

Sakura has been working on setting up a clinic at Hakkai's school! She's been working on it the past month with other characters and it should be up and running soon. I posted a log a little while ago but it's still open! For new players, feel free to take advantage of the wildcard option and just tag in if you'd like to get in on it. Feel free to assume that Sakura reached out to them during the training log and invited them/told them to come visit. The log is here.

She's also recruiting healers and medic types to help out as well as anyone who is willing to help in any way they can. Lastly, she's more than willing to teach first aid to everyone and healing magic to those with potential to learn it.