[Day 4, LA, EVENT] A Disturbance in the Force

[Cearnach]

This Event is dangerous. It is unlikely to result in death, but it is a possibility. Consider it carefully.

This Event is limited to the following characters: Shugenja, Ise Zumi, Asako Henshin, characters with the Blood of Osano-wo, Chosen by the Oracles, Inari’s Blessing, Medium, Seven Fortune’s Blessing, and Touch of the Spirit Realms: Meido, Tengoku, Gaki-do, or Yomi advantages, and characters with the Haunted, Seven Fortunes’ Curse and Cursed by the Realm: Tengoku, Yomi, Gaki-do, or Meido Disadvantages.

Even if you fulfill one of these conditions, if you also have the Disbeliever disadvantage, you may not participate in this event.

You participate in this event by making a post (or posts) in which you perform the steps of the event in the course of normal threads you are in during the Late Afternoon. You will then link those posts here. Please link all of the relevant posts to 1 post in this ooc thread. Please do not make multiple posts in this thread. Though it will be tempting, please do not comment on posts made in this thread. Save that for ooc chat or a tracking thread, if that is what you would like to do. The resulting tidiness here will make it much easier for us to adjudicate and evaluate this event. Thank you for being so cool!

Note that while there are descriptions of environmental phenomena in the event, these are only experienced by the participants. Those nearby will see the participants react, but will not experience the phenomena themselves.

Step 1: The Rending of the Veil
Perhaps you are in conversation; perhaps you are writing a letter, perhaps settling down to a cup of tea. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you feel it: first the wind picking up, then a rapid cooling of the temperature. Then, amid the cold and the rising shriek of the wind, a sound like someone ripping a shoji screen in half and a tremendous weight falling across your back.

Roll an Athletics/Stamina check to resist the force or an Etiquette/Reflexes or Perform: Dance/Reflexes check to sink gracefully to your knees. These rolls are to be made at TN: 20.

Should you fail your check, you are thrown violently to the ground. Take 2k1 damage from the blow. You are prone.

Step 2: The Rebuke
The spirits–all of them–are clearly shocked and angry. You have an opportunity to assuage the anger of the spirits immediately around you before they rebuke the mortal realms–and you, specifically. You might want to act fast.

Consider carefully the nature of your connection to the spiritual world and consult the following table. You must pass this roll to continue to part 3. If you fail this roll, you experience spiritual backlash and take 2k2 damage.

Advantages that apply: Benten's Blessing, Fukurokujin's Curse

My Connection is with a Fortune
1. My Connection is Broadly Positive: Lore: Theology/Awareness, tn 15
2. My Connection is Broadly Negative: Lore: Theology/Stamina, tn 25
3. My Connection is Broadly Neutral: Lore: Theology/Intelligence, tn 20.

My Connection is with the Elemental Kami
1. My Connection is Broadly Positive: Cast Commune with 2 Raises
2. My Connection is Broadly Negative: Cast Commune with 3 Raises, or Cast Banish with 2 Raises. If you choose the latter option, you may not proceed to step 3, but you avoid the damage.
3. My Connection is Broadly Neutral: Lore: Elements/Awareness or Lore: Elements/Intelligence at TN 20, or Cast Banish with 2 Raises. If you choose the latter option, you may not proceed to step 3, but you avoid the damage.

My Connection is with the Spirit Realms
1. My Connection is Broadly Positive: Lore: Spirit Realms/Awareness, tn 15
2. My Connection is Broadly Negative: Lore: Spirit Realms/Stamina, tn 25
3. My Connection is Broadly Neutral: Lore: Spirit Realms/Intelligence, tn 20

My Connection is with my Ancestors
1. My Connection is Broadly Positive: Influence Rank/Awareness, tn 15
2. My Connection is Broadly Negative: Influence Rank/Intelligence, tn 25
3. My Connection is Broadly Neutral: Influence Rank/Void, tn 20

My Body Art is Made with Kami Blood
1. My Relationship with Togashi is Broadly Positive: Meditation/Awareness, tn 15
2. My Relationship with Togashi is Broadly Negative: Meditation/Stamina, tn 25
3. My Relationship with Togashi is Broadly Neutral: Meditation/Void, tn 20

I Walk the Path of Man
1. Roll Meditation/School Rank, tn 25

Step 3: A New Resolve
Having created a moment of peace in which to get a handle on the situation, you are now able to act to console your favorite spiritual entity. They still aren’t entirely forthcoming on the cause of all of this–the trauma is too severe–but at least they will be less likely to lash out in the future.

Make a Meditation/Void, Courtier/Ring (if you can speak with the kami), Lore: Spirit Realms/Awareness, or Influence Rank/Awareness roll at TN 20.

Advantages: Benten's Blessing

Results
Characters who succeed in Step 3 are able to soothe the spirits in their location.
Characters who fail at this roll are unable to soothe the spirits. They will remain agitated, and it will take an additional Raise to cast spells in that area until the Spiritual Order has been put right.

If a majority of characters who attempt the Event are able to succeed at Step 3, the spirits of the castle are broadly soothed. This means that there will be normalcy for the remainder of court (with the exceptions noted above). Characters who attempted part 3 receive 4 Glory for their efforts. Characters who succeeded at part 3 receive 6 Glory and 2 experience points toward the Friendly Kami advantage instead.

If a majority of characters who attempt the Event are unable to succeed at this roll, whether because they failed at Part 2 and were unable to roll in part 3 or because they were unable to succeed at part 3 itself, then the castle suffers under the negative attention of the entirety of the spirit realms.
The following things occur:
The entire castle triggers the Cursed by the Realms: Tengoku Disadvantage.
Everyone with Shadowlands Taint or Cursed by the Realms: Jigoku will be required to make a Shadowlands Taint resistance roll (in your pfs, please).
A spiritual malaise will settle across the court. Everyone will be under the effect of Cursed by the Realm: Meido until the Spiritual Order has been put right or Court ends, whichever comes first.

[Kuni Shiori]

Shiori was blindsided by the outrage but managed to find peace with the kami.

At the conclusion of the day's proceedings and the late lunch meal that followed, Shiori meandered through the halls of the kyuden proper. Not that Shiori was scared of the possibility of rain, it was an accepted fact Kuni face paint was never meant to stay perfect throughout the day, but it didn't make venturing outdoors terribly inviting either. Still, there was so much of the kyuden's nock and crannies that she had yet to see. Surely, she imagined, this might have been a wonderous opportunity for a Kaiu somewhere to see the interior of a Lion's keep.

However, her walk wouldn't have been as peaceful as she imagined when she heard some faint screeching in the distance. That immediately brought the Kuni on high alert when she broke from her stoic demeanour and spun to gaze behind her. She thought it might have been goblins or escaped mujina on a rampage but that wasn't the case, but she wasn't too far off the mark. It made itself clear when it sounded again and moved at a brutal force right for her. She almost felt like the floorboards were going to be ripped apart and throw her off her feet but she managed to maintain a sure stance with her hands up as she resisted this spiritual force.

Her heart pounded and a headache surged through her head she could feel this raw outrage in the kami. It overwhelmed her to the point that she found herself sympathizing with their emotions without realizing it, knocking her unawares from reality. The kami lacked the same sentiments as mortals, their reasoning and sense of being were so very different. However, their emotions were very real and that was all that mattered right now.

With her internal fibre, she tried to steel herself back to reality, to find some anchor from this wretched spiritual current. The kami were too outraged to be forced back into submission and she didn't dare to try, unable to match their anger. Instead, she focused on returning to the stillness of the early and urged the kami around her to do the same. With a gentle hand, this took much convincing and coaxing, even as it still felt like that ground was unravelling around her worse than that earthquake the day before. She lost track of the time of how long it took, it felt like an eternity and she could only be patient in her approach. Eventually, time felt lost and she felt her emotions exhausted to the point of being numb...then everything felt still...

Still, like the earth. And it was over.

Re: [Day 4, LA, EVENT] A Disturbance in the Force

Rolls
Day 4 - Late Afternoon, A Disturbance in the Force, Athletics/Stamina: Void spent for +1k1 (1/3), unskilled | 4k4 ⇒ 32 (TN: 20)
Day 4 - Late Afternoon, A Disturbance in the Force, Lore: Elements/Intelligence, Neutral: Void spent for +1k1, Phantom Skill (2/3) | 5k4 ⇒ 32 (TN: 20)
Day 4 - Late Afternoon, A Disturbance in the Force, Courtier/Ring: Void spent for +1k1 (3/3) | 5k4 ⇒ 22 (TN: 20)

Success!

[Shiba Ryusei]

Success!

Ryusei sat in his quarters, cheerfully writing a few missives home-

A letter to his mother about his planned betrothal (and filled to the brim with singing Yuna's praises while not once mentioning her family's wealth because it was the least noteworthy thing about her to him) , with a sideline about how Court was very interesting, and a brief aside about the earthquake.

A letter to his brother about his planned betrothal into the Scorpion Clan (while hadn't mentioned it to anyone else, he knew Saburo wanted to get away from Shiro Shigi and their father and all of the rest), along with some brotherly teasing about how they'd both be old married men soon.

A letter to his sister describing the various courtly fashions and some brief thoughts on some courtiers from other clans (Noting that he had yet to talk to anyone who didn't strike him favorably on at least some level). And then some more gushing about Yuna, since he hadn't gotten it out of his system (and probably never would).

He was just putting the finishing touches on a much shorter letter to his father (essentially a "I have yet to disgrace our House like you said I would, and by the by, I've found someone who makes me happy, and I sincerely hope you can be happy for me on that score") when it hit.

Ryusei was a pious Phoenix. He venerated the Fortunes and respected the Tao.

But he was no shugenja, nor a Henshin, and this marked his first direct undeniable supernatural personal experience. He wasn't prepared.

He was hurled to the floor by the howling spiritual impact, the blow not as hard as some he had endured, of course, but no love tap either.

As he lay there in stunned shock, he felt something else.

It was like... someone crying. He had never heard Yuna cry- never wanted to, even though he knew he would have to someday- but for some reason, he was reminded of her. Of his prayer before Benten.

For that, I can never offer you enough thanks.
So I have one more thing to ask of you, greedy as it might seem, when you've already given me so much...

Never, ever, ever let me take her for granted.

He felt like now was a time to repay some tiny part of the debt he knew he owed the Fortune.

But it would be... dangerous. His sensei had always had trouble with him on this.

I must not fail.

Ignoring his bruises, Ryusei got into a lotus position, closed his eyes, and tried to center himself.

He sometimes got lost when he walked this path. But not today.

Ryusei communed with the Void, and through the Void, with the spirits that were in such turmoil.

And perhaps fittingly, given the nature of his spiritual gift, and the blessings they had sought, it was Yuna and the Little Teacher who gave him the right words to will into the Void.

The river never begins, the river never ends.

A simple phrase, just part of a longer one, but it was right.

It helped calm the spirits, restore them to their proper flow.

He remembered another line. And he spoke this one aloud, just as he had at the Dojo .

“You cannot conquer the elements. You must learn to dance with their harmony.”

This probably wasn't what his sensei had meant by "Dancing With the Elements," but as Ryusei was rapidly coming to realize, the Tao's wisdom applied at all times.

As he sat on the floor, his hair in disarray, fresh bruises forming on his side, as the raging spirits around him calmed...

Shiba Ryusei had the ghost of a smile on his face.
---
Athletics/Stamina to fall gracefully, TN 20 | 4k3 ⇒ 16 (TN: 20)

Faceplant damage | 2k1 ⇒ 9- Ryusei takes 9 wounds, still in healthy

Does Benten Have my back? Lore: Theology/Awareness, tn 15 | 4k3 ⇒ 23 (TN: 15) Success, no more beatings

Consumed- Any time Ryusei uses Meditation, he must make a Willpower Trait Roll at TN 20 or become lost in reverie as you seek a deeper understanding of this skill. Spending 2 Void for +2k2 | 5k5 ⇒ 36 (TN: 20)- He doesn't get zonked.

Meditation/Void at TN 20, Benten's Blessing applies, spending last Void for +1k1

Advantages: Benten's Blessing | 6k5 ⇒ 38 (TN: 20)