Event Mechanics wrote: 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 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2025 2:20 am

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.

Kuni Shiori wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2025 1:15 am

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)

Shiba Ryusei wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2025 6:57 am

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)

Yasuki Masaki wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2025 11:42 pm

Masaki was back at the tables today after her third meeting with the Centipede daimyo. She sat at the same table she was in when she met Hoshiko a couple days back, her tools again with her.

Much as she had the other day, she started arranging some bundles of straw, choosing and separating some of them for what looked like a new project. Based on the colours, it might be a bird of some sort. Or perhaps another animal?

She seemed rather focused, although her eyes went to the pool and the paths now and then. Maybe remembering the previous talk with the Asahina? Maybe remembering talks from years back? Maybe just reliving some of the talks at court?

Whatever it was, it would soon be sent flying out her mind as the wind suddenly picked up. A chilling wind. Soon a gale. A hurricane.

She stood up and braced. Noticing she wouldn't be able to withstand the powerful wind like that, she kneeled instead - somehow managing to do so gracefully, eyes scanning around, shifting from one thing to the next. Some things seemed to be scattered around... but as she soon noticed, not the straws. Not the leaves around. In fact, the branches on the trees weren't even moving all that much.

She closed her eyes, opened them again, blinked. This was not a storm. Well, not a physical one. Apparently, unlike Kyofuki-no-kami's the previous day, this manifestation was happening purely on other grounds.

Seeing more clearly now, she could see the faces, hear the voices. The koi-like water spirits thrashing violently through the water *and* the air. The leaves fluttering about whispering about - kami themselves as well.

For a moment there, she was thankful that there were no immediate sources of fire around.

Focusing, she could see him. Plump, cheerful even among this chaos. He smiled to her, shaking a bowl of rice and swinging his mallet around. A couple mice seemed to dance on the ground.

Why, child, you look worried, he said cheerfully.

Should I not be?, she said - although she wasn't quite sure she'd opened her mouth.

What is a storm if not an opportunity to grow more rice?

... a storm can be many things, can it not?

Many things. Among them an opportunity. Do you not trust me?

...If not you, who never failed us, who would I trust, Kami-dono?

Very well! Remember to seize the fertile ground then! Despair, and the ground will flood, and your harvest will fail. Sow at the right moment, however, and the storm will double what you may reap!. The plump figure voice's seemed to echo - the hearty laugh that followed it even more so.

I will try my best, Kami-dono. To look for the signs of the changing weather, and sow when the ground is ready. I shall trust you as my family always did before me. Thank you kindly, she said-thought, her head dropping to the ground in prayer.

When she raised her eyes again, the figure was gone. The wind mostly subsided, the same patchy rain as before on the sky.

Slowly, carefully, she stood up, cleaned her knees, looked at the table. The straw was there - a bit wet from the rain, as expected. But no signs of any storm.

Yet, at any rate.

Yogo Kiuchi wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:35 am

Kiuchi went to the inn try their food. He promised Sato he would bring him some leftovers. As he was looking for a table, he felt the weight of the spirit world crash down on him. Thankfully, his training managed to gracefully fall to his knees.

Once he gets up, he realizes the spirits are pissed. His failure over the ritual yesterday haunts him still. But he manages to get into contact with the fire kami.

Once they are calmed, Kiuchi manages to inform them of his position, ensuring them that he will use his influence to put it right.

Disturbance in the Force Part 1: Etiquette/Reflexes | 6k3 ⇒ 30 (TN: 20)

Disturbance in the Force Part 2: Commune VOID | 6k4 ⇒ 33 (TN: 25) Forgot to put the 3 Raises in the description, but I did put the correct TN with them included.

Disturbance in the Force Part 3: Influence/Awa VOID | 6k4 ⇒ 53 (TN: 20)

Doji Shinnosuke wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:47 am

Not far off, Shinnosuke is walking Haku in the forecourt when the typhoon hits.

At least that's what it feels like at first--the sense-memory of the early autumn storms on the northern coast with their intense cyclone winds floods into his mind as the gust slams into him and keeps pushing, until he almost feels his feet start to lift off the ground. Shin grips Haku's leash tighter, afraid the little dog might be swept away by the gale. Except that it's too cold for his memories--more blizzard than typhoon--and then there's a horrible noise and it feels like the wind has ripped part of the gazebo roof loose and flung it into him from behind. Shin staggers and falls to his knees, only just saving himself from a faceplant on the paved path.
D4 LA Disturbance in the Force--step 1, Etiquette/Reflexes + Prodigy to fall over *elegantly* | 7k3 ⇒ 21 (TN: 20)

He can't really make his eyes focus, but voices and colors seem to be swirling wildly around him; he grabs wildly in his memories for any explanation, but all that comes to mind is the sutra to Benten he recites each morning at his little kamidana, so he chants that blindly (if melodiously) for an unmeasurable length of time, until the chaos seems to abate somewhat. In its place, he seems to see a beautiful, vaguely feminine face--familiar, but not, somehow, anyone he can remember seeing before, at least not while awake--wearing an expression of great sadness.
D4 LA Disturbance in the Force--step 2, Assuage the Spirits (Fortune, Positive) wow I feel clever for taking Lore: Theology now. Lore/Awareness, BB | 5k5 ⇒ 18 (TN: 15)

"Please," he whispers, "please don't cry. It will be all right. All illusions fall away in the end, and one day enemies are reborn on the same lotus flower." It was a line from a play, the first thing that comes to mind in his disorientation. The gorgeous face smiles a melancholy smile and his vision clears...
D4 LA Disturbance in the Force--step 3, Console, Lore:spirit realms/Awareness, BB, VP for skill | 5k5 ⇒ 25 (TN: 20)

...revealing a close-up view of Haku's short-nosed, hairy face anxiously close to his own. The little dog grumbles nervously and licks Shin's cheek. Shin's face is wet. Was it the rain, has he been crying, or....

"Ugh, Haku. Not the face." He sits up on the ground and scrubs his cheek with his sleeve. "What was all that?"

Asahina Hoshiko wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 16, 2025 8:00 am

Hoshiko finds she'd lost track of time digging into a bit of research and ends up imposing on the kitchen for the leftovers from the proper lunch hour. Restorative miso soup, warming after the chill outside, rice balls, tea. It's actually rather pleasant to have room to spread her current scroll while eating in a space less crowded than it would have been an hour before.

At first she thinks a door has been left open, letting in a draft, but after a moment it's strong enough that she reachs out to rest an arm across the scroll, though oddly, it doesn't flutter at all. A few seconds later she's pressed against the table by the gale, bones aching with the cold of it. What in the world...? There are screams in the wind, terrible and afraid. Not this world...or not only this one.

She draws on the calm that lived within her in that place touched by that otherworldly court, breathing deep of the icy wind. Sitting up, she can see the scroll remains untouched by these winds, and her quiet prayers start threading through the screams...that few seem to be reacting to in the room around her. Slowly, she weaves that inevitability, that calm waiting for the next thing to come up, the next life to cycle through into the wind and feels it calm...slowly.

She's trembling by the time it's calmed enough to seem merely agitated, only partly because her bones feel as if they were dipped in the ocean's depths. After a slow breath, she trusts her hand to grasp the teacup, which now feels almost too hot, to sip and imagine it seeping into her bones. What set that off?

After a time to collect herself, she rummages in her satchel for the stone coins in their silk pouch. She holds them in her hands a moment, rubbing them together before tossing them lightly to the table, and leaning forward to see what they have to say about this.


*************************
Step 1: The Rending of the Veil
D4 LA: Step 1: The Rending of the Veil Etiquette/Reflexes VP | 7k4 ⇒ 33 (TN: 20)
Success

Step 2: The Rebuke
D4 LA: Step 2: The Rebuke Lore: Spirit Realms/Awareness | 7k4 ⇒ 67 (TN: 15)
Success

Step 3: A New Resolve
D4 LA: Step 3: A New Resolve Lore: Spirit Realms/Awareness | 7k4 ⇒ 39 (TN: 20)
Success

And some Divination for good measure. D4 LA: Divination about the upset winds! Int/Divinaition | 4k3 ⇒ 15 (TN: 15)

Doji Arai wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 16, 2025 8:56 am

Doji Arai is in her room resting when see feels something peculiar. It's in the air, in the atmosphere and it's quite different than anything she has felt before. She raises from her futon and she doesn't even manage to stand. Instead she falls gracefully to her knees.


She moves closer to a corner of her room where her daisho and a few candles are placed as a spot for her daily prayers. There she prays and ponders on what could have caused this feeling inside her. In the end she manages to find the mental thread that connects her to the past of her famiy. She remembers her home, her ancestral lands and everything that ties her to the here and now. And above anything else, she remembers the small shrine in her room back home, the one dedicated to Lady Benten. This seems to calm her down. The turmoil inside her is soothed for now.

/
D4, LA, etiquette/reflexes | 6k3 ⇒ 20 (TN: 20)

D4, LA, lore: theology/awareness, BB | 5k5 ⇒ 29 (TN: 15)

D4, LA, influence rank/awareness, BB | 9k5 ⇒ 45 (TN: 20)

Success: 6 glory points

Mirumoto Jinkan wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 17, 2025 2:55 am

Jinkan is trying to figure out which piece of jewelry to buy when it hits him in the face like a door. "Ah, fucking-" the rest is cut off by a coughing fit as he tried to keep steady. He failed and fell over into an alley.

The hell was that Mother? Mother?

He mumbles to himself for a while before standing up and beginning to act out a strange game of charades.

[Day 4, LA, EVENT] A Disturbance in the Force, Step 1, Etiquette/Reflexes, TN20, 6k3 | 6k3 ⇒ 19 (TN: 20)

[Day 4, LA, EVENT] A Disturbance in the Force, Step 1, Damage, 2k1 | 2k1 ⇒ 9

[Day 4, LA, EVENT] A Disturbance in the Force, Step 2, Influence/Intelligence, Void for 1k1, TN25, 6k4 | 6k4 ⇒ 38 (TN: 25)

[Day 4, LA, EVENT] A Disturbance in the Force, Step 3, Influence/Awareness, Void for 1k1, TN20, 6k4 | 6k4 ⇒ 40 (TN: 20)

(Success.)