Possession Event

[lucetimods]

Who: People in Luceti
What: Spiritual possession
When: The 26th to the 1st
Where: Luceti!
Summary: Check out the previous mod post.
Rating: If it gets smutty, move it somewhere private.


Starting at midnight on the 26th, Luceti and its inhabitants will find itself the focus of the Filial spirits, usually quiet and reclusive, now stepping out to deal with one of their own.

As promised, here is some additional information to help figure out how to play around with the spirits and interacting with similarly possessed people.

First off, each spirit has a certain time or place when they are at their most powerful. Consequently, characters possessed by them will enjoy these boosts and this in itself can be a deciding factor in what would otherwise be a stalemate. Here’s a quick run down:

Sona - She’s most powerful around lakes, rivers, and the ocean. Mostly this is concentrated at the southern lake.

Kipinn - He’s most powerful in high places, like mountain tops and the roofs of community buildings.

Faeren - She’s most powerful in the farmlands alongside things that grow.

Tsinku - He’s most powerful in the village itself, where technology thrives.

Eferin - He’s most powerful in the center of the forest where his heat may cause trees to burn. In fact, the upcoming forest fire may cause some trouble if his followers get too rowdy.

Hyt - It’s most powerful during the daytime under a bright sky.

Twila - It’s most powerful during the night time.

Nala- She has no domain and is generally welcome wherever she goes.

How possessed characters will deal with other possessed characters will depend on the interactions of the spirits themselves. A useful spreadsheet sums up these relationships. Those that have a friendly attitude to one another will generally allow ‘trespassers’ into their domain, but those they are not so friendly with may cause conflict.

Finally, to elaborate on Twila-possessed characters. Those with a natural affinity for darkness are likely to be possessed first. Once they have, they can try to recruit others less-compatible candidates to ‘join the cause’. Their goal is numbers. The more who are working with Twila, the better. Once they do, they’ll be inclined to act in their own self interest and if necessary, deal with others who try to get in their way. In the long term, the spirit Twila wants to stay this way, bonded to the Lucetians as hybrids, that way it cannot be imprisoned again. Think of it as pure survival instinct of an animal that’s spent way too long in a cage.

All isn’t lost. The other spirits may not be able to cage it again, but they won’t accept Twila reacting in this manner. Though it’s hard to tell what their beef with Twila is, they have an instinctive familiarity with the dark spirit and seem to act as its jail keepers.

They have the power to free people from Twila, but given their poor communication skills, figuring that out might just be a challenge. After all, the spirits can only communicate in shades of feeling and intentions, but not actually verbalize directions or marching orders. However, there will be a Malnosso post mid-event that will give everyone, possessed or otherwise, the info they need to turn things around.

Comments

[therewerefifty]

I need... precision.

[Gently Makie sets down the bundle tucked under her arm against a tree-- her shamisen-- and takes enough steps away from it to ensure it's out of harm's way. She would never have thought before now that light could be sharp as a blade-- but with the possibility raised--

She tosses the stick as high into the air as she can, and waits a beat. Two.

The light flashes, a blinding curve through the air. Her first strike is clumsy, but Makie improves with each one, slicing into the thin wood and sending it kicking back up into the air again, until it finally hits the grass in seven separate pieces. She's fast.

She also can do better. But it's a start.]

[knifesedge]

[Knives stays silent and almost completely motionless, only breathing and the occasional tug of wind on his person proving him an animate thing at all. To most people it might be kind of creepy but.. well. Hyt encourages it. Makie's probably felt it as well.

But it isn't all Hyt. He's watching closely, observing the actions Makie takes attentively. She's fast. Not as fast as he could be, but for a human it's almost admirable. And she adapts quickly.

After a while, he finally moves, a spark of light forming and collecting rapidly into something roughly the size of a baseball. It's bright but not painfully so, easy to track and watch.]

Try a moving object that isn't falling.

[It's flicked in her direction. It's moving quickly, and fairly erratically. Since she's using the same power he is, she should be able to swat it around or slice it up fairly easily. If she can hit it.]

[therewerefifty]

[Her stroke is both smooth and automatic now, arcing out to slice the object cleanly in half, expression serene. She barely looked at it.

This is what she's been missing. Peaceful nature aside, there's nothing quite like moving with a blade, regardless of what it's made of.

Although...]

I wonder if lethal force will be necessary.

[knifesedge]

[Fairly promptly, he conjures up another. It takes no effort to make the little light orbs, and if she's handling one fine, several more should be easy.]

It's possible. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

[It kept surprise from being a Thing to worry about. Knives was good at planning for worst-case scenarios and usually he was right.]

... Are you capable of killing?

[That seems like an odd question, and he seems only mildly curious. She certainly had weapon skills, which would suggest she IS capable pretty clearly, but he asks anyway. Which means he's possibly used to those who can, but don't.]

[therewerefifty]

[...what a question. Before today she'd be reluctant to answer it, especially to someone she's just met. But...this is different.]

When I must. [Though her smile is a little sad, she's fully sincere. Killing... won't be an issue. If they have to go that far.] I assume you are, also.

[knifesedge]

['When I must' didn't mean she was a wanton murderer, like those he used to collect like fine personal weapons.]

There's no pleasure in killing. But it may prove necessary. ... Part of 'prepare for the worst'.

[And Knives' habitual paranoia and suspicion was only heightened by Hyt's; sooner or later the Twila-possessed would have to face purging. He shakes his head slightly, then sets to work practicing the more difficult part of light control: illusions. He's figured out how to make them visually believable, but there were more senses than just vision. The beast he conjures up moves realistically, but no sound, no smell.]

But it's ... nice, to have an excuse to practice new power. Even if it might not last.

[therewerefifty]

[Makie is soon distracted from her own work by the beast. Illusions and blades of light aren't things that occur naturally to a woman from such old times, but once she sees them she feels...reassured. As if there's a small voice whispering within that such things are more than possible.]

I agree. I've never felt anything like it. [Hyt feels warm to her, giving her power that doesn't necessarily have to end in slaughter.] But I'm rather narrow-minded when it comes to ways to practice, I see.

[The first part about necessary killing, she leaves be. She might be reluctant to agree, but she's always been practical. He's right.]

[knifesedge]

[There had to be a way to make it seem more realistic. A way to imitate sound as well. Would that require wind's influence? After all, sound was vibrations in the air.. The image flickers, like a mirage on the horizon.]

Humans can have difficulty adapting to things wildly outside their experience. It isn't ... narrowmindedness, but instinct. The new and unusual can kill you, after all. Instinct can be overcome.

[Many of their new abilities didn't involve causing direct harm. He was okay with it. It interested him, gave him something to toy with completely outside the realm of his power as a plant.]

An illusion is more difficult than I'd expected. [A reluctant admittance, even more reluctant because she might know how to fix the annoying problem he had with the images.] I can't figure out sound, or scent. It's incomplete without them. Is there a way to fool those senses with just light, I wonder?

[therewerefifty]

[Humans, huh...? He looks human to her, but in such a bizarre village Makie certainly won't point this out. Filing that for future reference.]

Such an illusion with the an appropriate level of distraction will still be believed as genuine. If you give them no space to examine your work, it will pass muster.