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[Logical2u]

Current status: It's begun! See below.

Detailed status: We are now at 'full speed', whatever full speed for a play-by-post RPG actually is, that is. If you could, please make sure you're up-to-date with the thread if you're playing.

If you are interested in joining the other PCs, you should PM me. You might not get in right away though, or I may also use your character as an NPC (with your permission). However, if you want to be a PC, you may be waiting for a while at this point...

• What’s this thread about?
  
  Have you ever wanted to decimate hordes of enemies with barrage upon barrage of deadly magical bullets, but found that 1. Magic isn’t real and/or 2. You can’t play shooter games? Then perhaps this thread is for you.
  Touhou RPG – Tale of Phantasmal Land, is an adaptation of the Touhou setting and gameplay into a tabletop RPG format, designed by a person known as Bahamut. Bahamut is currently working on a different project (a small TTRPG known as Treasure Hunters, apparently soon to be part of Fun Tyrant games), but someday intends to come back to this project. As such, the game is in a partially finished state, which I will attempt to rectify myself (much to the chagrin of game balance).
  
  
• What do I need to do?
  
  To participate in the game, you must create a character. In the world of Gensokyo – Touhou’s setting – crazy things – incidents – happen on a regular basis. If you were to somehow get wrapped up in one… well, you might end up a hero! Thus, you should view your character as a ‘hero in training’, although you have significant leeway in that. However, to become the greatest hero… you must also get more of the glory than your partners – either by getting more points, or by convincing others (both in and out of the game) of your greatness…
  You cannot finalize your character without gamemaster input – that would be me. Unfortunately I haven’t gamemastered before so I could make many amateur mistakes. Hopefully that won’t happen. Please be patient with me… Note: if I really like your character but we have a full party or your character would severely clash with the rest of the party, I may ask your permission to put your character in as an NPC. Otherwise, we can talk about waiting lists.
  Moreover, your character will probably have some traits that are best kept secret from other players. Thus, do not post your character information in the thread or you will be disqualified.
  
  Posting in this thread is not enough to guarantee a spot, but it will help your chances. See the quick character creation guide below for more details.
  
  
• What will happen?
  
  Expect to get involved in an incident and attempt to resolve it through any means necessary. You will likely encounter a group of individuals also inclined to resolve said incident, and work together. However, you will need to compete amongst yourselves (in a more-meta, less-in-game way) to make sure you walk away looking the best out of all your friends.
  As to what the first incident will be, I have something planned, but I shouldn’t give away too much. You will find out as part of your introduction to the game, if you get in.
  You should expect combat and some skill challenges throughout. You could hypothetically brute force your way through any incident, but there may be more efficient ways to advance your goals…
  
  
• How do we play?
  
  Gameplay rules are described in the rulebook. We will be operating with a play-by-post system. I will be making all rolls myself using dice I have on hand. You just need to tell me what you want to do when it’s your round (i.e. what rolls I should be making for you) or turn to act during combat situations, and during noncombat situations you should describe what you're character's up to (e.g. "I go here", that sort of thing) - I'll post special rules if there are any, but in general if I leave you guys alone, just give me a short update what you want to do and I'll make it happen - either in a group if everyone agrees, or individually if not...
  You will be expected to follow the thread so that you keep your character’s orders up-to-date. If you have not posted within 72 hours of one of my updates during a combat situation (which will encompass one complete turn) I will make a decision for your character on my own. Otherwise, for non-combat situations, the time will vary, but never be longer than 72 hours.
  Some information will be shared publically with the thread – anything that any character could notice or hear will be shared in this way. If one character has specific information (e.g. telepathy or somesuch) that information will be shared via private messages to that player. They can then share that information either in the thread or with other players via PMs – basically, I can’t stop metagaming, but I can make sure that the initial information is given in a way that makes sense.
  
  
• Are there any gimmicks?
  
  The main gimmick of this game is Fandom Points, or Faith Points, depending on what you prefer. Basically, in Gensokyo – the setting of Touhou – things that no one believes in end up there, and the power of belief and faith is a real power. Thus in this game, accumulating FP means getting more power. You can get FP by acting in character, being a badass, or pandering to the masses.
  Touhou has three main gimmicks that might transfer over here… 1. Most characters are females of various origins and ages. 2. The art is usually really bad. 3. The music is usually really good.
  There is a Touhou trait that has become a gimmick – your character should be readily identifiable from only a headshot. I am not expecting you to draw anything, but if your character has unique hair, hair style, and/or hat, that is good. Otherwise, I reserve the right to 1. Give you an (in?)appropriate hat somewhere along the way or 2. Give you one less life to start with at the beginning of an incident.
  Finally, the last combat gimmick draws from both: Half of combat is looking cool. Thus, giving me an awesome description for your attacks will get you a bonus.
  
  

THREAD RULES

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Obviously the forum guidelines and subforum guidelines apply here.
• There is a specific thread rule of DO NOT BE CREEPY. In any fandom there are always weird, inappropriate, or offensive things that appear. I really don’t want those showing up in this thread. I’m trying to be careful not to do anything of this sort myself, so this applies to everyone here – including me.
• Posting a character sheet will disqualify that character from playing.  If you post someone else’s character sheet, I reserve the right to disqualify you – the poster – from playing.
• This is not a general Touhou thread – please do not post images or music in bulk, or otherwise without relevance to the current story. Although I'm not 100% up-to-date on this forum's distribution of Touhou content, I distinctly recall there being a Touhou music thread in the General Discussion subforum. Please do not discuss Touhou here, outside of what’s happening in the game and what might be useful to provide additional background to people.
• This is not an out-of-character thread. Obviously I can’t control every single post, but if you want to have a big discussion on the game’s content, direction, loot division, and characters, may I suggest you create an alternative thread? I will apply the same rules here as there are in this thread, except for the ‘general touhou’ one, so don’t think that you can be super creepy in one thread and normal in the other and expect to keep playing as if nothing is happening.

Quick character creation guide

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Create a concept or idea for a character.
• Pick your stats – you have 6 stats, starting with 2 in each, plus an extra 12 points to allot. Might – Might/2 + 2 = lives. Finesse – Finesse = Evasion. Resolve – resolve/2 -2 = hitbox. Will – Will = To hit bonus. Charm – Charm/2 +2 = bombs. Cunning – cunning = initiative.
• Pick your race (See Kludges for specific notes on half-ghosts, bird-youkai, and moon peoples).
• Pick your skills. (See Kludges for notes on how skill rolls are being modified) You get 5 skill points to start.
• Build your free spell card/bomb.
• Build your character’s equipment and style (using 15 yen to start).
• Decide on your character’s name, look, title, combat style, danmaku style, bomb names, occupation, and location.
• Browse Endearments, very Bad Things, and FP abilities and items. You start with 10 FP, can gain up to 10 from Endearments, and 10 points from very bad things. Endearments are generally less mechanically dangerous than VBTs, are paid off easier, and can help pay themselves off with time. Continuing costs 3 FP. You can take up endearments and VBT in order to continue up to that limit as needed....  (See Kludges for notes on custom endearments and FP items). If you have this much done, your spot is reserved. Note that if I want to start the game and you're still stuck at this point, I reserve the right to hand your spot to someone who is done.
• In order to finalize FP, you need to talk to me about your character's endearments, bad things, etc and your general character design. I will also want to talk to you regarding FP items. Once you have a final FP value, buy your endearments, very bad things, abilities and items.
• Boost your spell card, skills, money, or items with remaining FP. 1FP -> 3 Spell Card points. 1 FP -> 5 skills. 1 FP -> 15 more yen. AFTER CHARACTER CREATION, these values drop, so if you think you want these things, maybe do so now. I will allow you to bank spell card points for later!
• Finalize everything else.
• Submit to me your complete character profile. At this point, assuming there's no other problems, you're in!

FAQS

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Do I need to know anything about Japan to play this game?
  
  Not really. I don’t know very much about Japan myself – although I am using a variety of resources to create a somewhat ‘Touhou-like’ experience. If you need help with character names I recommend the following websites: http://www.behindthename.com/usage.php or http://www.20000-names.com/female_japanese_names_02.htm
  For adapting a more common Japanese word to a gendered name try : http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2271.html or http://www.aboutnames.ch/japanese.htm
  In Gensokyo the most common backgrounds are Japanese, Chinese, and European.
  General problem with figuring out names: some names sound similar, or the same, when translated, but have different meanings and characters. I would try not to worry too much about that unless you are going for something extremely clever, in which case you should confirm your cleverness using a service such as This English->Japanese and Japanese kanji -> english translation service
  
  Edit: I didn't initially include any stuff regarding family names/surnames: check out the following two sites for more info.
  http://surnames.behindthename.com/names/usage/japanese
  http://genealogy.familyeducation.com/browse/origin/japanese
  
• Do I need to know anything about Touhou to play this game?
  
  It’ll certainly help, but I don’t think you’ll need to explicitly know anything about Touhou to get through an incident. I’ll be helping you out with character profiles of people you meet or know (although only with knowledge you know in character.) If there is something in specific you want to know about Touhou (at least, the Touhou setting I’m ‘building’), I encourage you to contact me via PM, tumblr, twitter, or Steam.
  
  
• What is Touhou?
  
  Touhou is a series of vertically scrolling ‘bullet-hell’ style shooters created solo by Zun – he’s sort of a Japanese counterpart to Toady, but Zun reportedly works best when drunk (in contrast to Toady, whose creations work best when drunk).
  Touhou takes place in Gensokyo, Japan. Gensokyo is kind of a weird place… There are often big incidents that draw extremely powerful people together in the interest of resolving them, usually by forcing the initiator to recant under threat of magical bullets. The end of an incident is usually marked with drinking, partying, and tea.
  There have been many large incidents in the past – these form the story of the various Touhou Project games. I’ll summarize the current and past situation as it’s needed.
  
  
• What is Gensokyo?
  
  Gensokyo is a location in Japan that has been magically sealed from the real world by means of a great, semi-impenetrable barrier, called the Hakurei Border. The border is maintained with the faith given at the Hakurei shrine – which exists in both the real world and the land of Gensokyo. Thus, the Hakurei shrine maiden – Reimu – is probably one of the land’s most powerful individuals, and is similarly considered by some a key component of the land’s day-to-day existence.
  
  
• Who lives in Gensokyo? (With spillover into “why do they live in Gensokyo”)
  
  Gensokyo is populated by humans, youkai (a catch-all term for various Japanese supernatural oddities), devils, gods, ghosts, and animated spirits, among other mythological creatures. I will group all of the later under the term ‘youkai’ for now.
  Youkai have existed for a long time, but when people stopped believing in them, they began losing their power. They were also being driven out by experienced, combat-savvy humans. As such, a plan was begun – the Youkai Expansion Project – to increase the effective power of Youkai by localizing themselves in a specific region – Gensokyo. This drew Youkai not only from across Japan, but from across the world. Gensokyo became a center for supernatural activity, and also drew brave humans ready to stand up to them.
  Eventually, an uneasy status quo was established between humans and Youkai. Youkai preyed upon adventurous humans for sustenance, and humans hunted down and exterminated extremely dangerous youkai. Even so, the power of youkai continued to wane, until 1885, when the Great Hakurei Barrier was established around Gensokyo.
  This removed Gensokyo from the world of the real and brought it into the world of the imaginary. As such, all remaining youkai became attracted to Gensokyo – this is the only place where they can continue to exist. It also firmly established their power – as youkai become things of the imagination in the outside world, their effect in Gensokyo becomes more real.
  As it stands now, Gensokyo is nearly entirely cut off from the outside world – only a few rare items, and even rarer visitors, manage to make it to Gensokyo – and many of those visitors are quickly caught and eaten by youkai. There are locations in Gensokyo where a youkai is not welcome to attack humans – the Human village and the Hakurei shrine among them – so anyone who does make it to Gensokyo typically learns to integrate into the existing human settlement.
  As part of various incidents, other supernatural locations – various incarnations of Hell, for example – have become connected to Gensokyo. These oftentimes bring new manner of youkai with them. Sometimes they become part of the landscape permanently.
  A few literal gods also call Gensokyo home. This game does not allow playing as gods, due to obvious power creep issues and the fact that they are extraordinarily rare. However, many species of Youkai and devils are available, as well as Gensokyo-native humans, who are on the same scale of strength as Youkai, for the most part.
   
• What exists in Gensokyo?
  
  Anything that could be found in 1885 era Japan can be found here. Extremely rarely more modern objects may be found in Gensokyo after they pass through the Hakurei border… but good luck explaining how they work, or what they do, to someone whose knowledge of science and technology is based on 1885 era facts and the existence of magic.
   
• How does combat work, in general?
  
  You shoot ‘bullets’ (danmaku) at people. As a character you are assumed to be able to do this via some method. If you have a gun or bow, maybe these are literal bullets. If you have a melee weapon, perhaps you throw it at people, or create anime-style travelling ‘cuts’. More than likely there is some magical component to this.
  All attacks are considered to be at range. Only in extraordinary circumstances would someone, during combat, ever be out of range. Thus, you never need to worry about positioning or range.
  Actually hitting someone with something physical is relatively rare – all combat is governed by “Spell-card rules”  (available at http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Draft_of_Spell_Card_Rules) which basically say “hitting someone a bunch is extremely frowned upon”. They also say beauty in your attacks is of the utmost importance – hence the ‘stylish’ gimmick from earlier. These rules also mean that actually killing someone is extremely rare. More likely is the ‘bad end’ which usually just means you go home, make tea or sake, and give up on your dreams of adventure for fear of getting beat up by someone again.
  
  
• Wait, isn’t this that game with all the little girls in it?
  
  Yes (sort of)
   
• Isn’t that kind of creepy?
  
  Only if you want to make it creepy. If you get creepy in the game I reserve the right to ask you to leave, or otherwise eliminate your character.
   
• What do you mean sort of?
  
  As I said earlier, Zun can’t draw – thus most of the character portraits look ridiculous and it’s hard to judge age from them. Moreover almost everything in the series is some personification of some devil or evil spirit (e.g. Japanese devils, sentient cats, curse dolls, etc) so age doesn’t really make a lot of sense when talking about ageless horrors from the darks of the human psyche. I hope I don’t have to say more on this point.
  
  
• Also isn’t the cast all girls?
  
  Yes, but feel free to play a male character – there are no intrinsic changes to character creation beyond the heights for tiny, small, short, regular, and big/tall are all scaled up by 10 cm. Men do exist in Touhou canon, just they don’t get the limelight.
   
• Isn’t this the game with the huge numbers of bullets in it?
  
  Yes.
  
  
• How the heck can I dodge that?
  
  Have a high evasion or hitbox stat and roll well versus your enemies. Everything is condensed down for combat (except for spellcard creation…) so all of these masterful dodging feats you see in replays on youtube are stuff you can assume your character is doing in game.
   
• Can I deathbomb, then?
  
  Not really, but you can bomb to avoid death.
  
  
• Can I be (character from Touhou series)?
  
  I expect you to make up your own characters, because I may draw from existing characters for combat, npc or plot purposes. Feel free to be inspired though.
  
  
• Can I know (character from Touhou series)?
  
  Until your character successfully solves an incident, assume them to be a relative nobody. Thus, don’t expect to be able to call in any favours from outside this thread… I will be ok with you saying “Oh, my character is aware of so-and-so through X”, but really don’t expect to stand out to them.
  E.g: Your character can be a devout Buddhist, but don’t expect Shou (in short, a dangerous Buddhist defender) to come at your beck and call.
  
  
• Help!
  
  You can contact me via PMs, Steam, twitter, or tumblr if you have any questions.
  
  
• No, help, I’m on fire.
  
  Oh, in that case you should call your local emergency responders, not read this FAQ.
  
  

FIXES AND KLUDGES – You have my permission to break the game with these if they're obviously broken. But also expect me to try and figure out to fix them for the future.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Note: I reserve the right to secretly kludge things if it’s in the player’s best interests to do so. I don’t expect this to happen too often, but…

There’s a FP (burning spirit) item that has an element with it. Feel free to change to any of the other elements. Also, feel free to change the type of item it is, with the exception that you may also be expected to pay some yen towards it as well. Also, silver throwing knives – feel free to replace with another seemingly-infinite thrown weapon (e.g. shurikens, holy waters, small hand axes, arrows, etc). In fact, for almost any item, if you have a good idea of what you want to do, but it’s not listed in the manual, tell me about it. I’m happy to kludge something together. Especially if it is close to, in terms of abilities, to something that already exists.

Note that clothing/armour/decorations are already intended to just be general styles of clothing, so as long as what you're telling me on your character sheet makes some amount of sense in its adaptation, I'm fine with it.

Birds – although Mystia and Tokiko are the only bird youkai, obviously not all of the birds are night sparrows. Feel free to pick another type of bird and I’ll do my best to come up an alternate ability (to Blanket of Darkness) for them. If your bird is a song-bird, you’ll get the sing-song ability, otherwise I’ll see what I can do.
E.g. Owl – nocturnal – owl-youkai prefer to sleep during the day and work at night. Night-sight – owl youkai can see normally at night (e.g. all vision ranges at night are the same as they would be during the day) and get the benefits of enhanced sight during night.
Hawk – gets the benefits of superior flight, gets the benefit of enhanced sight when explicitly tracking something.

Half-phantoms – this race  is broken at present. I have no idea how they were supposed to play, but I thought up my own kludge for their racial ability…

“Two Halves are Better Than One”
Your spirit half can be operated independently of your corporeal half. Mechanically, this does the following:
For the cost of 1 life, once per incident, your spirit half can be controlled independently to within ~30 ft. This lasts 30 minutes or until the end of the stage, whichever comes first. Your spirit half has no attack or bombs, an extra evasion and hitbox score (it’s immaterial after all) and only one life (the one you gave it). If your spirit half is not hit in combat, you regain the life after this ability expires.
On its own, the spirit half can take the form of any material object or person you can visualize, or a person holding one object. The spirit half makes no noise and floats above the ground. It may pass through walls but doing so will obviously break the illusion that it’s a physical object. It cannot interact with anything (e.g. open doors, hurt someone)
In battle, the spirit half can take one of two stances: Offensive or Defensive. Your spirit half behaves like a regular combatant and can be hit by attacks. If your spirit half is hit, you may bomb on its behalf.
Offensive stance: Pick a target. That target suffers -1 to its evasion as long as your spirit half remains. If the target loses all its lives, you may pick a new target on your next round.
Defensive stance: All attacks that could hit you first must hit your spirit half. If your spirit half is hit in this fashion and the attack was multi-target (e.g. a spellcard), the attacker gets to immediately roll against your evasion and hitbox as well. Otherwise, the spirit half dissipates and the attack sails safely into space.

Moon-rabbits and Lunarians – they’re welcome in Gensokyo now, although you will probably be known by the inhabitants at Eientei, and if you’re a Lunarian, you should probably have a good reason for coming to earth – in universe, they’re kind of space-racist and thus prefer the moon.

Being small – get an extra +1 bonus to thievery rolls – you’re tiny, that means you have tiny fingers! (This is an attempt to make Small just as valuable as Big. )

Spells – the spell name and descriptions are suggestions. Keep the costs, (General) effects, requirements, and stage limits, but feel free to modify the name and how they look. (What do I mean by general? For example, Ice arrow will always be a water elemental attack, but it need not be an arrow nor made of ice - it could be a rain storm of some sort, a ball of water, fog or some sort... water cantrip specifically includes etc. in its description. If you are unsure of what a cantrip or spell could do, feel free to talk to me. E.g. for nature cantrip, if you wanted to temporarily preserve food, I would say that nature cantrip would do that.)
The following spells are all reclassified as enchantments, not elemental. Any boost, blind, silence, root, sleep, lunacy. You can also make lunacy and blind illusion based if you’re so inclined. (This shouldn’t have much mechanical effect.)

Endearments – have a good idea for an endearment? Tell me about it and I’ll make a decision. Don’t give yourself any points until I confirm something though.

Biography/art/song endearments – give yourself 1 point if you have anything at all, for a first estimate, and I’ll tell you how many extra points you get, if any, after you finalize with me. Ideally your art and song will be 1. presentable and 2. not revealing a lot about your character, so I may ask your permission to use them in the dramatis personae post. Your biography will not be presented to anyone except me.

Code of honour: I expect you to tell me what that code is! Likewise I need to know how you’re exploitable. Expect to be called to use your code of honour, and expect to be exploited.

As with all characters, your character sheet is hidden so you shouldn’t tell anyone else this stuff… however, you will also go on the dramatis personae, so if something substantial is revealed publicly, expect everyone to know about it.

Want to have decorative stuff in your spellcard? That’s free. Any mechanical stuff will cost you, though.

Skills: Probably a bit broken due to the fact that apparently this game was on a D20 system before it swapped to D6-D6. As a temporary, kludge, Skill rolls are d6 + associated stat + skills (+ whatever other applicable bonuses). As such, you should expect anyone to be able to do simple feats all of the time (except in extreme circumstances or adverse endearments), challenging feats if they have some natural talent, and everything else if they have some extreme talent. E.g. to easily make folded metal weapons, you need a combined stat + skill + bonuses of 11, meaning for Might 4 (an average starting Might rank) you need skills + bonuses of +7, meaning you probably will have 5 points in blacksmith and either take the blacksmithing ‘feat’ or take extra time to make items (allotting extra time -> a bonus, as you’re not in a rush.)

Stances: There are three stances in the rule book: Assault, Play it safe, and Flirt with death. I propose to add two new ones (although I expect them to come up rarely). 1. Defender – a pure-dodging stance. Add +2 to hitbox and evasion. While in this stance, you may make no combat maneuvers (i.e. spells or attacks of any kind) against an enemy. Basically this is just combining the two focused stances into something for someone who wants to survive. 2. Distracter – an aggressive stance, intended to draw enemy fire. While in this stance, you may only make 1 combat action per turn. (I.e. no multiple spells or attacks per turn). Pick a target. You suffer -1 evasion vs all other targets, and -1 hitbox versus that target only. In exchange, that target suffers a -1 to hit versus all targets.  This could be useful, for example, in drawing the fire of a major enemy, but you run the risk of exposing yourself to incoming fire. Note: This effect does not stack – an enemy can only be so distracted!

Useful posts

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Old Thread
• OOC Thread
• Dramatis Personae
• A brief history of time Gensokyo
• Touhou thread in general discussion
• Touhou music thread in general discussion

[freeformschooler]

Actually, what the heck. I'm game. Not even afraid to say Touhou has an awesome setting. Give me tonight to stat up a character and I'll PM the details as requested. I can draw a little, too

[Logical2u]

Dramatis Personae

PCs

• Hakyou Hantsuki - Spiteful Broken Mirror - HailFire
  
  Hakyou appears to be a short, scrawny, and battered looking human. Her worn straw hat - decorated with a silver half-circle - only barely covers her messy black hair and a silver-pink eye on the right, which easily blends with her pupil. On the left side of her face, there are only bandages and scars. Her left arm is similar missing and bandaged. Bandages also cover parts of her right arm, and her legs - although covered by worn leather pants, some bandages are visible through rips and tears. Her chest is wrapped in a large sarashi-like bandage as well. She wears few decorations - a lotus flower tattoo on her stomach, some bone charms, and a broken mirror like a necklace.
  
  Spoiler: Artist interpretation... (click to show/hide)

  
• Yoko Yamauichi - Swordswoman Lost in Nirvana - Aylor
  
  Yoko is a strapping human-looking woman. Her shoulder-length black hair is kept out of her green eyes with a decorative red hairpin in the shape of a lily, and is done up in a ponytail, that barely reaches the red hilt of her blade. Her face is slightly tanned from recent exposure, but is otherwise plain. She wears a simple two-tone green one-piece dress, which nearly reaches her tall dark boots. She also wears a slightly worn black cotton jacket, as protection against the elements. A simple wooden necklace hangs around her neck. Although none of these elements would, individually, stand out, on the whole they seem slightly out of place.
  
  Spoiler: Artist interpretation... (click to show/hide)

  
• Kumiko Yamashita - The Many-Legged Marcher - Wwolin
  
  Kumiko appears to be a short, armoured human. Although she has dark green eyes and wears a green beret, her ludicrously long pitch black hair, tied into many segments yet still frayed throughout, dominates her profile. She wears a complete set of splint armour (made up of many overlapping strips and plates of metal on leather) on her torso and around her waist, culminating in heavy, bright yellow, boots. She holds a yari (spear) as a weapon. The armour is decorated in a few places with bright yellow strands of fabric or leather. She wears a segmented circular necklace around her neck.
  
  Spoiler: Artist interpretation... (click to show/hide)

  

Former PCs that didn't get a Bad End.

• Hana Yama - Charming Cliffside Fairy - Freeformschooler
  
  Hana is green-and-gold fairy, although is quite short, even among fairies! Her bright green eyes, long dark green hair, tied neatly into a ponytail, and bright gold clothing and six dark gold wings plainly identify her as a fairy associated with the harvest or nature in some way. Her shirt is two-tone between two different shades of gold, a lighter yellow on the torso and a darker gold on the wings, along with a leaf pattern on the centre. Her pants are similarly dark gold, held up by a light green belt. She wears plain straw sandals.
  
  

NPCS

• Reimu Hakurei - The Shrine Maiden of Paradise
  
  Reimu is the current Hakurei Shrine Maiden. Given the Hakurei Border's importance to preserving Gensokyo, and Reimu's own involvement in Gensokyo's many past incidents, there are many who view as either one of the strongest people in Gensokyo, or the most critical person in Gensokyo. Although Reimu has in the past been involved in every single major incident in Gensokyo, given her tendency towards laziness, there must surely be some that slip through her sight.
  
  Her primary job is youkai extermination. However, if you cause trouble in Gensokyo, it's more than likely that Reimu will be the one to deal with you, whether or not you're youaki.
  
  
• Aya Shameimaru - The Traditional Reporter of Fantasy
  
  One of the few people in Gensokyo who actually bother to try and catalogue all the crazy stuff that tends to happen. Aya is a crow tengu, and is frequently seen with a camera snapping pictures of incidents, danmaku patterns, and people for use in her Bunbunmaru newspaper. In terms of its content, to us, it falls somewhere between a small newspaper and a tabloid in terms of usefulness. ["This is rather the sort of newspaper that is more suited for a human or youkai that wishes to whittle away a lazy afternoon perusing its pages while sipping a cup of tea."] Nonetheless, it's frequently read across Gensokyo, by both humans and youkai.
  
  Aya will typically try and report on any incident that occurs in Gensokyo, if she can. Although she's not a renowned incident solver, she still tends to get a little wrapped up in them, due to her reporting.
  
  
• Mayu Kurosawa - Desperate Drider Desperado
  
  Stage 1 boss of the first incident. A funnel web spider-youkai that uses her webs as both tools and danmaku. She 'works' out of the forest between the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the Human Village, apparently in conjunction with fairies. However, it seems 'business' hasn't been very good lately - she was pleading with the PCs for food or money at some points.
  
  Mayu herself is a tall, thin woman with shoulder length brown hair tied into tight braids with thin white webs, with a pale grey beret perched precariously on top. She's wearing a blackened scarf around her neck. She's wearing a padded armless shirt on her torso, which has thick white 'ribs' on it made out of web as well, increasing the protection it offers. On her legs are plain black pants ending with wooden sandals. Her right hand usually holds her nekode, while her left hand is wrapped around the knuckles with linen.
  
• Aoi Yoshida - Rabbit blessed by water
  Stage 2 boss of the 2nd incident (alongside Sakura, making up "The Lucky Devils"), an earth rabbit who heeded the SDM's call for applicants (and somehow managed to get Sakura to tag along, too). Aoi acted brashly in an effort to weed out the competition after the SDM's cheapness was revealed, but the PCs put an end to that. Aoi surrendered, ending the ensuing combat.
  
  A tanned and fit youkai, Aoi wears short blue pants, a loose white shirt, and heavy red buttoned hoodie over that. The hoodie has holes cut into it to allow her light-brown ears to poke out, though. The rest of her hair matches her eyes, and her eyes are blue. Aoi is obviously brash, but it seems her weakness is both food and a penchant for exaggerating too much - especially in terms of her danmaku prowess.
  
  
• Sakura Oyama – Mighty courage, mighty strength
  Stage 2 boss of the 2nd incident (alongside Aoi, making up "The Lucky Devils"), a hand-to-hand fighter of some variety who heeded the SDM's call for applicants (in part thanks to Aoi's interest). After Aoi made her move, Sakura followed. Sakura was defeated by the PCs in the ensuing combat.
  
  A massively-burly, dark-skinned oni (?) with ram-like horns, Sakura wears a short dark-blue skirt, a plain white short-sleeved shirt with a matching dark blue collar, and red tie. She wrapped her hands, wrists, and ankles in heavy linen for padding, grey-white eyes, and long, white, ropey hair. Her face is adorned with a large diagonal scar across it. In contrast to Aoi, Sakura tends to be cold and patient - even while applying overwhelming force to her enemies.
  
  

[HailFire]

Reporting in: Back from life stuff, and still game for this.

I also might do some drawing for characters- I need the practice. 

[Logical2u]

A brief history of Gensokyo

There are two currently only two events that I'm assuming all the PCs would know about: The Hakurei Border creation and the Ten Desires incident.

• The Hakurei Border
  
  Created 127 years ago, the Hakurei Border, named partly due to its relationship with the Hakurei shrine maidens, and the geographical location of the Hakurei shrine to the border. Its creation was so significant an event that years are measured relative to its date of creation. It helps to preserve the balance of power of Gensokyo, but it's reportedly not impenetrable...
  
  
• The Ten Desires Incident
  
  An abundance of spirits began appearing around the time of the cherry blossom blooming, attracting the attention of various adventurers in Gensokyo, the shrine maiden, Reimu, among them. The appearance of spirits was linked to the resurrection of a sealed Taoist saint, Miko Toyosatomimi. Tensions were eventually defused once both the saint and her companions, and opponents who wished to re-seal her, were defeated.
  

[freeformschooler]

((Been busy with school, but my character is nearly written up. I'm just deciding on a last FP Thing.))

[Logical2u]

Spoiler: Previous update (click to show/hide)

Hi everyone, just a short update today for today:

1. There's still time left if you're interested in joining up with the three PCs already listed (in the 3rd post here). I was originally looking for 4-6 - that hasn't really changed, and we currently have 3 players. As always, I'm happy to help with character prep.

2. However, (and this might come as good news to the current PCs), I will push ahead with three player characters anyways. If I don't have any more applicants by next Thursday, I will be sending out the 'setting the tone/introduction' PMs and making the corresponding introductory post late Friday night (i.e. Friday the 23rd of November, presumably by late I mean 9-10 PM EST). It may take me a little bit of time to make sure I've scaled the content appropriately to three players, though, so things might temporarily slow down afterwards as I work at that.

This post reserved for incident specific updates - lives, bombs, points, and plot points.

Current player stats

Character Name	Remaining Lives	Remaining Bombs	Earned Points
Hakyou	2	3	10.08 million
Yoko	3	0	10.025 million
Kumiko	4	1	5.04 million

Ongoing plot points

There are some strange fliers that seem to have advertised a job in the human village. From your present position, you can see they've attracted some attention - not all of it positive!

Seeking: Respectable and qualified troubleshooters for a discrete task.

Inquire at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, before afternoon tea today, for further details.

Signed,
S. Izayoi, chief maid.

The forest on the way to the mansion is shrouded in unseasonable fog.

[Logical2u]

Stage 0: The Human Village

[Welcome everyone to the first ‘in-game’ post of this thread. As the players may have already seen, I’ll be keeping any OOC content that needs to be in this thread and in prominent posts inside these square brackets. We’ve got an OOC thread (linked in the main post) that may be useful as well… As you may or may not know I’m still accepting applications (and in fact may keep accepting them indefinitely), just that fitting you in might be a bit of trouble. Today’s update is brought to you by dubstep remixes.]

Although you may still be stiff, sore, or slightly hung-over, the morning light and the rustling of your drinking companions have been enough to rouse you. It is currently midmorning, in Gensokyo year 127, near the end of the Frost Month, just following a rice harvest festival of some sort. A thin layer of fog that hung on the ground is being broken up by bright sunlight breaking through light cloud cover. It looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous day, and slightly warmer than the past few days have been. Thankfully, all of your hangovers are nearly gone, so the sun looks enticing rather than painful.

You are all currently outside a bar named ‘Umemoto’s’, on the outskirts of the human village. The narrow road the bar sits on is dusty, the dirt and grass trampled flat from revellers both human and youkai. Surrounding the road are only a few other establishments – what looks like a small run-down restaurant down the road to the left (which tempts your now-hungry stomachs) and a shop with the owner just now putting out an ‘open’ sign that’s decorated with flowers, nearly across the way. The rest appear to be houses, in various states of repair. From here, any of you could definitely find your way back home or to any other part of the human village, however.

The biggest commotion on the road is a little ways to your right. In front of a seemingly-abandoned house, you can see a gathering of 10-15 people – some of them quite obviously youkai from their inhuman ears or wings. There appear to be a rather large percentage of well-dressed fairies among them. The group is gathered around a tall fence post that’s now doubling as an impromptu sign post. Some of them appear to be holding a sheet of paper - one of the many that adorn the post in a single layer. The paper is, however, inspiring mixed reactions. A few seem to be angrily tearing it up, whereas others are somewhat excited about it. Maybe those are the fliers you vaguely remember from last night’s ‘discussion’? This probably isn’t the only place to find them, though.

From here, your journey is up to you!

[Aylor]

Yoko, deciding that food is much more important than excitement at the moment, as should always be the case when hung over, shakily gets up and stumbles over to the restaurant to get some breakfast.

[freeformschooler]

Hana walked up to the fence Yoko and Hakyou were resting on only to find Yoko walking away wordlessly to grab breakfast. Disappointing, but that's fine. At least she had one friend.

"H-hey, Hakyou, weren't those the fliers from last night? Some sort of call to adventure? Why's everyone tearing them up?"

[Logical2u]

[After sending some PMs and thinking about how to make this work, we're back!

Retroactively removed]

By the time Hana's finished with her question, Yoko's arrived at the restaurant across the way. After a brief delay, you can all see a woman, in a blue dress with a grey top, briefly pop out, a discussion ensue, and the woman jotting something down, retreating back inside, and then returning, with food, which goes to Yoko. Yoko, much more steadily now, and carrying precious cargo, returns to Hana and Hakyou's position along the fence.

She's carrying three steaming boxes that smell of fresh rice, ginger, onion, and miso, along with a big glass bottle of water. She pushes a box towards both Yoko and Hana, along with wrapped up chopsticks, and sets the water between the three of you. She very happily exclaims "I got us some breakfast!" Then, before even waiting for a response, or acknowledgement, she digs in, pausing first to breath, and next to remember something else.

"Oh, and I managed to grab one of those leaflets, too." Yoko says, barely looking up from the rice porridge, and grabbing a folded piece of paper from underneath her arm with a free hand, passing it to Hana.

Hana excitedly unfolds it, and begins reading it, although in a loud voice that doesn't seem to reflect her small size. You seem to have gotten the attention of the store-owner from across the street, judging from the rustling and noise in the shop.

Seeking: Respectable and qualified troubleshooters for a discrete task.

Inquire at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, before afternoon tea today, for further details.

Signed,
S. Izayoi, chief maid.

Hana then quickly turns the page around, showing the rest of you the details. What follows the impeccable handwriting at the top is a map that takes up the rest of the page, showing a few labelled locations and a scale bar - among them are the Human Village, a place called the Misty Lake, and the aforementioned Scarlet Devil Mansion. If the map is accurate, it'd be just under an hour's walk to the mansion along a forest path, also shown on the map.

The paper is, however, weathering noticeably as it's waved about - what was once white is now a light brown.

The commotion down the way has quieted down in the meantime - the fence post looks normal again, except for the scraps of brown paper around it. You see about 3-4 people - not the well dressed fairies, though - from the group flying overhead, in the direction towards the Mansion, and the rest dispersing in small groups either back into the village, or flying into the wilderness in various other directions. If they noticed your presentation, they didn't care, or perhaps have lost interest in the issue.

[freeformschooler]

"OH NO, before Afternoon Tea! I don't know when that is but there's probably a time limit! Let's get going, huh?"

Hana kicks her wings back like she's going to fly but waits to see if the other two do anything.

[Aylor]

"Sit down. Afternoon tea isn't till the afternoon.  Probably late afternoon. We'll go after we finish our breakfast; there's no rush." Yoko replies exasperatedly before continuing to eat.

[HailFire]

"Respectable, qualified, and discrete, huh? _{Counts us out.}" Hakyou mutters, taking a swig of water and a sidelong glance at Hana.

"We do have some competition, though; they could get the job before we even show up. Might want to eat on the road, if we're interested."

[Aylor]

"Huh, that's true I guess. Still I doubt they'd use so many fliers like this if they didn't want quite a lot of people."
Yoko ponders briefly while spining one of her chopsticks around her fingers.
"But why is the paper... aging so quickly? Should we grab some more? Or copy the map onto something else? We could probably get what we need from that shop."