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DECEMBER EVENT PT 1
DECEMBER EVENT PT 1
premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation
→ 12/3 Lockdown
- The wind picks up at midnight, flowing through the streets but softened by the snowflakes that drift down from the sky. Over the full hour of Lockdown, the snowfall dampens the wind and makes it harder to follow the stream than before, blowing out from the forest and towards the center of town where a snowdrift builds up against the shut doors of the hospital's main entrance. Defeat the Daitengu, and the next dungeon appears the month after... During Lockdown, black blobs of Shadows continue to seep out of the hospital, shrine, lake, and school, but with the third Daitengu defeated, the wind doesn't howl as strongly and the snowfall is light, leaving the town dusted with snow the next morning that easily melts by mid-day. The town is cold, quiet, and still, almost as if holding its breath, but perhaps it's an illusion created by the townspeople staying indoors to keep out of the cold, and that everybody who had arrived from the alternate Hirajiro has been spirited away overnight, gone without fanfare by the time the wind dies down at the end of Lockdown. The only thing left behind is a complete deck of tarot cards with no duplicates, neatly stacked and set by the entrance of the honden, with a heavy stone on top to keep the cards from blowing away in the wind.
With the wind picking up around the shrine, a slow, deep ringing can be heard from a large bell that has been tied up above the offertory box with a thick rope, swinging with the wind; the offertory box itself is emptied of gemstones at the beginning of the month, but will slowly fill back up if the Persona users continue to donate the stones dropped by defeated Shadows, with the understanding that any boon they receive comes with strengthening the Kotengu as well. As if called by the toll of the bell, it seems like all of the crows in town have congregated around the shrine for the winter, perched on the rooftops, lit stone lanterns, and even the torii, all peering down at whoever enters the shrine and keeping an eye on them all the while they stand on sacred land. Although the crows seem unbothered by the ringing bell, the resident fox skitters away whenever it hears the noise, although it will always return when the wind dies down, or if the bell is otherwise bound and still. The sign that's supposed to contain the shrine deity's name still lacks the name, but this time, the sign is painted over with solid black, the paint layered on so thickly, you can see where the trails of paint are pulled to the bottom of the sign, under which dry spots of black paint can be seen before covered by the dusting of snow.
Near the path leading from the shrine to the castle, a large area of trees has been demolished in a vaguely serpentine shape, the trees lying splintered and fallen but far enough to pose no danger to the castle. Unlike the shrine, there are little to no crows that hang around the structure, the same two stories with the broken stairs up to the incomplete third floor becoming hazardous to climb with the falling snow and the wind that blows through the open windows of the second floor, making the castle howl. The throne sports a new cushion and a thick woollen blanket draped over the back of it, but with the ofuda door containing just the same two as before, the castle remains stuck in time, and the night goes on.
→ 12/3 - 1/2 Town events
- It snows on and off over the next few days, getting steadily colder as the month progresses. While the snow is powdery and easy to clear, there's a lot of it that piles right back up by the end of the day, creating a constant demand for help shoveling the roads around the neighborhoods and marketplace to keep them clear, although the Persona users will have to keep the path to the castle and shrine clear on their own, as none of the townspeople are concerned about the forest in general. In town, all the extra snow initially gets pushed towards the center to dump into the lake, but after the lake freezes over after the first week of the month, the excess snow gets piled into a large hill and packed down to be perfect for sledding, with makeshift sleds ranging from laundry baskets to trash can lids left lying around for people to grab and slide— and pray they don't veer off course and crash straight through the ice covering the lake. A Persona may be able to thicken the ice and make it safer to skate on, but in the meanwhile, people will just have to watch out for the spots where the ice is thin and easily broken. Please don't fall in, unless it's near midnight and you fall straight into a random floor of the lake dungeon.
Strings of plain white Christmas lights adorn the trees in town and around the outskirts where it borders the forest, leaving the entire town lit with a soft glow after sundown. Throughout town, the decorations are similarly subtle, with fancier decorations seen in storefronts rather than people's homes, and instead of a single Christmas tree towering over the town, a set of four smaller trees line the back of a large stage set on the lakefront across the school building, which has made its appearance for summer festivals in the past. Surrounding the stage are many stalls that make up a holiday craft market that will be open all month. For a small fee, anybody can purchase a spot at the craft market to sell their own crafts, most of which are intended to be decorations for people's homes or to be given as gifts for Christmas and the New Year. Among the crafts are traditional gifts like knit scarves and sweaters, as well as clay figurines, beaded crafts, painted plates, and any manner of handmade items people have to offer. Although the main focus of the market is for crafts, there are also stalls selling refreshments such as hot chocolate and baked goods.
On the stage itself, each of the four trees is topped with a bird-like angel painted in soft reds, blacks, and golds, and rather than lights and ornaments, the trees have emas hung on the branches, with wishes written on the small wooden plaques. While emas are traditionally hung at a shrine for the kami to receive them, the emas here are for the community to offer and receive: for every wish you hang up, you're encouraged to take at least one other ema and fulfill that wish in return. Some of the wishes are very general, such as asking people to do good deeds to make the world a better place, wishing for the exams at school to be a little easier next year, or hoping everybody in the hospital will get better. Other wishes are more personal, such as wanting to learn a new skill, receive a certain toy, or help cleaning out a basement, and these personal wishes contain the person's name and contact information to indicate who to report to grant the wish. Not all wishes can be granted directly, but the effort put towards them still counts. There is no payment or other incentives to fulfill multiple wishes other than good karma, which will surely be returned to you in the new year.
→ MOD NOTES
- ⬥ Each character may make one free ema wish in the top-level below and the mods will reply with how the wish is fulfilled. Note that personal wishes will be signed for everybody to see, and while ICly all wishes will be fulfilled by the townspeople and not the Kotengu, for this first wish, a crow will occasionally swoop down and take an ema, so you guys can get your stat boosts and skill upgrades.
⬥ Additional ema wishes may be made for every thread reported that involves fulfilling one of the townspeople's wishes and must have a minimum of 5 comments from you. There is no limit to how many ema wishes that can be made, but all threads are due by 1/3/2020 when January's dungeon log goes up. These extra wishes will be fulfilled by the townspeople, so they might not know what to do with wishes like "+1 to all stats." You are still welcome to try, though, and they will do their best.
⬥ Part 2 of December's event will go up on 12/15 to encompass Christmas, New Years, and tragedy.
⬥ This month, the full moon occurs on 12/11 - 12/13. While Personas are stronger around the time of the full moon, they are more difficult to control and may behave strangely and disobey orders around these dates. This is an optional mechanic.
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[Who needs birthdays.]
I had other things to worry about besides celebrating a date like that.
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[ They are going to have a collective "everybody who had a birthday in 2019" birthday celebration before the end of the year or so help her. ]
It doesn't have to be a big deal, and I know there's people who don't want it to be, but... It feels nice to have a day dedicated to yourself, right? Letting your friends honor you for a day is nice. You're part of our team, after all, and you've helped us all a lot.
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It really, really wasn't. It's not even timed right.
[She sounds firm on this.]
Anyway, I'll keep helping out. But thanks to how weird this place is about time, birthdays are really unnecessary.
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That's true, isn't it? When we're skipping and repeating months, it doesn't really make sense. Well, I'll find another excuse to bake cakes.
[ There's always calendar holidays if people don't want to celebrate turning 18.7 years old. ]
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A Christmas cake I can do. I wonder how many people would want to celebrate Christmas together... but it'd be nice.
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[ Who knows where they're living, idk if it's been oocly determined yet, not helped by the fact that two mansions will have showed up and immediately get sold before they can be lived in. ]
It's more people to our team, which is good. If you haven't yet, talk to Yamato. He can have two Personas out at one time, and strategies well with them.
[ One Persona and a Legion, but Kido isn't wrong about him being experienced. 45 and Rio were talking strategy before, the both of them used to that sort of thing, so Yamato would be somebody good to talk to just for his input in battles. ]
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[Newcomers! She better figure them out fast, this place is enough of a mess without even more unknowns walking around.]
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He's told me he's had experience with things like Personas and dungeons before. He uses a gun and is a good shot with it— we were at the school dungeon earlier, and he shot at the Ravens to drive them closer to his Persona to finish off. It's that sort of teamwork and tactic I don't see with anybody else, the two of them working together instead of side by side.
[ It's loads better than Nekogami laying waste to everything but Kido standing back with a gun taking podshots at things. That's not working together. Yamato knows how to work together with his Persona. ]
Both of his Personas seem to be physical based. Those were the attacks that they used, so when I paired with him, I could keep him constantly healed so he can fight, and when we defeated a Shadow, my magic would be replenished too, so in that sense, it's a good partnership.
[ Infinite attacks on Yamato's side since he doesn't have to worry about the HP drain, and Kido's generally able to hold her own without worrying about HP or SP. ]
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[She says, until she realizes he's a cop. :T]
We still haven't done any training runs, have we? We should think about trying that out when we can. It'll be good practice for everyone.
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Right. Akira and I talked about it before too, having training sessions together. Maybe once a week or once every two weeks? I'm not sure when everybody's around over at your place, so maybe you and Akira can get people's opinion on what days and times work, and I'll do the same with the people I live with. I'll talk to the Attendants too, to ask if they're willing to help be practice dummies.
[ They're invincible so it's fine. It'll be like the Daitengu battle pt1, except the Attendants are battle practice without the risk of anybody dying this time. ]
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We don't always need to have everyone together to do it, either. Actually, I'd like some practice splitting into smaller groups too, if we can. We'll be able to do a lot more if we learn how to work together in different arrangements.
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[ Tactics makes her head hurt, and she's glad there's people like Rio and 45, even Yamato, here to do this sort of stuff. It reminds her of the very very first Daitengu they'd faced, when there weren't a lot of them to begin with and Kido and RO had tried to organize people into two separate group, a front line with RO and defense/healing with Kido who could hide their presence and keep the weaker healers from being hurt.
Needless to say, it didn't work out. Here's hoping things will work out in the future. ]
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We should also probably train them up with their Personas. The rest of us could really use the practice so we can catch up.