Possessions & Curses

[kaisoumods]

Possessions & Curses
Premise | Rules | FAQ | Regains | Elements
Locations | Applications | Taken | Full Nav

There are two types of permanent statuses that can afflict characters while in Kaisou: Possessions and Curses. Both of these mechanics are optional, and vary in different ways.

Possessions
Possessions are when characters are possessed by a supernatural creature. Possessions occur when a character is on the brink of death. Sometimes a being from the Spirit Realm will hear a person's dying prayers and offer to save their lives. If they accept, their lives are saved and they are miraculously healed either immediately or over the course of a few days, but they are now forever possessed. Possessions can occur either during the AU backstory or a character, or through events in the game if a player chooses.

How does one get possessed?
To put it simply, they have a near death experience or actually die. If a character wishes to not die is strong enough, a being from the Spirit Realm will appear and offer to save their lives. How much of this encounter the character remembers transpiring varies from character to character. Some they will remember every detail, some will have the details blurred, while others will have no memory of the entire incident.

What are the benefits of being possessed?
Characters who are possessed will have an all-around boost to their abilities. The strength of the boost will depend on the strength of the being possessing the character, but in general think of it as a +1 power boost for regular supernatural creatures (meaning if you purchased low fire manipulation, you can now do medium fire manipulation), and a +2 for anything considered on a god level (meaning if you purchased low fire manipulation, you can now do high fire manipulation). This will also apply to general physical abilities as well, so long as it doesn't contradict their contract price. The only exception is intelligence -- possession will not make you smarter.

Characters who are possessed will also heal faster than normal. Injuries that'd normally take days or weeks to heal will only take a fraction of the time. It's also much harder for a possessed character to get sick -- unless it's the common cold. Not even the gods can help you there.

Finally Possessed characters who are in mortal danger or feel extreme heightened emotions (like trying to protect a loved one who is in peril) can trigger a demon mode. This means for a short period of time, the creature they are being possessed by will take more control. They will have a huge boost of power as well as be capable of doing things they weren't normally (example: a character possessed by a dragon will suddenly be able to breath fire). Their appearance may also shift to look closer to the being they are being possessed by (not a full transformation, but they'll exhibit features). How cognizant the character is during this mode will vary (though they will recall not having full control of themselves at the very least, though they may also black out completely). This mode will only last a short period of time, and the whole ordeal will leave the character both pained and exhausted as human bodies weren't meant to take on that level of power. While it'll vary a little from character to character, it'll take about a 3 days to a week to fully recover from any demon mode incidents. Healing magic will have no effect on the recovery time.

What are the disadvantages of being possessed?
All possessed characters require to have a contract price. This is an action or behavior that a possessed character must fulfill that's an actual impediment to their life. Some prices include being unable to lie, having to drink blood, doing a specific ritual every day, etc. Depending on what the contract price is, it may need to be required to fulfill on a regular basis, whenever they use their abilities, or it's just always going on. Characters who are possessed by a god-level being must have two contract prices. Players are allowed to choose their contract prices, but they do require mod approval.

In addition, possessed characters who have strong emotions will cause things to break around them periodically. They also must maintain a strong will over their sense of self, or risk being pulled into the Spirit Realm and become a denizen of the realm.

What happens if a character fails to fulfill their contract price?
If a character fails to fulfill their contract price, a few alternatives can happen:

• The possession will start draining the possessed lifeforce, slowly draining their lives and causing them to become weaker and weaker until they either begin fulfilling their price or they die. The speed of this process will vary from person to person. Some may decline in a matter of days, while others can last for years if they're strong enough. The longer they wait into their decline to start doing their contract price, the slower it'll take for them to fully recover. OR-


• The possessed character will have a harder time controlling their possession. They will find themselves becoming losing their grip on their sanity, becoming more agitated, and their own abilities will start to activate without their control. They will feel something clawing their insides, as if trying to gain more control. This problem will continue to magnify until eventually the demon mode is triggered involuntarily and lashes out at anyone nearby with reckless abandon. Unless they are defeated by the people around them, it will end with them being dragged into the spirit realm. This whole process can take a matter of days to a few months, depending on the character.


• Characters who are possessed by gods may also experience either of the above, but they also run the risk of being smote should they violate their contract, meaning if they die or go berserk - there's a good chance they will blow up at the end. So. That's fun.

What happens if a possessed character is dragged into the Spirit Realm?
Possessed characters can get dragged into the Spirit Realm into one of two ways: first they can fail to fulfil their contract price, or they can be taken during a moment of weakness brought on by utter despair.

Those who are dragged into the Spirit Realm due to their possession become trapped in a labyrinth that reflects their worst nightmares. This labyrinth will also be full of monsters. They are permanently stuck in their demon mode version in a frenzy, and must either be defeated or talked out of their frenzy before being led out of the labyrinth. Characters must save a possessed character within 3 IC days before the gate to the labyrinth closes up and the possessed character is gone for good.

These are entirely player run events, so it'll be up to players to design the labyrinths. If you have any questions, you can run it by the mod.

How much can characters interact with the being possessing them?
It depends entirely on what's possessing them! Some beings are extremely chatty, while others only speak occasionally and some you'd never notice them there. It may take the form of a voice in their head or a general feeling different from their own during different circumstances. The nature of the relationship a character has with the being possessing them is entirely up to you, in other words!

That said, it should be noted that while the possessed character can interact with what's possessing them, anyone else attempting to interact with the possessing being will be limited. Possessing beings are allowed to take over the voice box of their host for a line or two during a conversation, but past that it'll start to cause physical harm to their host. This is also applied to any text or written messages. If a character attempts to use magical means to contact the being, any communication will be rendered entirely indecipherable.

Alternatively, possessed characters cannot use their possession to info-mod metaplot information or information about other characters. If you try to interrogate possessed beings about information like that, they will either refuse to answer or won't know the answer themselves, depending on the being.

What is the societal view on possessions?
Among normal NPCS, what they know about possessions stems entirely from horror movies, ghost stories and religious beliefs - just like it is in real life. Normal NPCs have no way to tell that someone is possessed, and will treat them as normal. But if you prefer, some possessed characters may give them an "off feeling" that the NPCs can't really explain. You know those kind of people who just give you an uneasy feeling but you can't explain why? It's like that. Alternatively if your character is possessed by a good-natured god or spirit, some NPCs might be drawn to them more than they normally would - like a person you find oddly charming or attractive, even if you can't put an objective reason as to why. Again, this can be played with as you wish or skipped entirely.

Meanwhile among NPCs connected to the paranormal, opinions are mixed. While they are less ostracized than they were in the past (in which there were many periods of history where possessed would be run out of town or killed) and they are seen more as people with an unfortunate condition, some factions still will treat known possessed people with wariness due to the potential danger. Other factions meanwhile, such as Zodiac, don't have an issue with them or will even see them as a potentially useful asset. And of course, there's fringes parts of the paranormal society that view possessions as desirable and will go out of their way to obtain that power - these groups are scary! Paranormal characters won't be able to tell that someone is possessed unless they have a sensing ability or cast a sensing spell. However some locations may have wards that will inform an occupant when a possessed has crossed the threshold. Possessed characters visiting various temples and churches in Cathedral Hill for the first time may have a small nagging feeling that they're being watched, but the feeling will go away once it's clear they mean no harm.

Finally, some animals may be able to sense a character is possessed. How the animal reacts to the possession depends entirely on what they are being possessed by. For instance being possessed by a kitsune may get foxes to adore the possessed character and follow them around, while small prey animals will avoid them like crazy. You can play with this aspect as you wish!

How does one become unpossessed?
There's two ways to do this. The first method is to die. If a character manages to die, they will revived completely unpossessed.

The second way is to track down the spirit creature possessing them in the Spirit Realm and to kill them. A plot like this will take a lot of time to track the being, and they actually have to be able to defeat it as well. So uh, good luck to any characters being possessed by gods.

Are there any limits to possessions?
Unless your character is one who canonly can handle multiple possessions (Persona Wildcards, Sora from KH, etc), you can only be possessed by one supernatural being at a time! If you do fall under one of this category and you're interested in multiple possessions- talk to the mod you crazy bastard.

And while you are allowed to pick whatever being you'd like for your possession, please avoid any entities where having them portrayed or possessing people would be seen in poor taste by religions/cultures currently living today (examples would be Buddha, the Islamic interpretation of Allah, gods and spirits worshipped by any indigenous people living today, etc). Use common sense, in other words.

Where do I sign up to get possessed?
You can either note your possession when you app a Paranormal AU. Otherwise if you want it to happen while they are in the game, you can head over to the Major Character Update post!

Curses
Curses are a potentially permanent magical affliction that affects a character. Curses come in all shapes and sizes, and can be incurred any number of ways such as an unlucky gacha roll, angering spirit realm being you shouldn't, messing around with factions you shouldn't, playing with magic spells you shouldn't, eating things you shouldn't - and so on. Sometimes curses will be used as IC consequences for certain actions, but in these cases players typically have the choice if they want the curse to be permanent or not. Permanent curses from severe IC actions (like murder) will always be warned about ahead of time as well.

What types of curses are there?
There's a large variety of curses that could potentially happen to a character. These are the general categories of curses:

• Animal/Transformation Curse: The character is cursed to turn into an animal or obtain an abnormal feature (like a tail or horns). Animal curses can be any type of animal so long as it exists in the real world. At this time, supernatural creature curses are restricted to characters who are cursed with such in their canon to regain (ex: if they were a werewolf in canon) or gacha prizes only. Animal curses should follow these guidelines. Animal curses get worse under stress, though potions and charms can be used to help control it.
• Restriction Curse: A curse that restricts a character's behaviors or actions in some way. Examples of this would be making it so they cannot lie, or they cannot go out in daylight. Attempts to do things that the curse restricts can either cause them to be blocked from the action magically, or result in pain.
• Compulsion Curse: The opposite of a Restriction curse, these curses force a person to do a certain action. Perhaps they must always speak in rhyme or eat grass. Attempts to resist these compulsions may result in pain or the curse magic forcing them to do it anyway.
• Elemental Curse: Curses that causes elemental energy to manifest in harmful ways. An earth elemental curse might have someone's hand turn to stone, while a person with a water elemental curse is always moist. These elemental curses give no additional power boost.
• Forbidden Curses: These are the curses that are much more severe than the other curse types. Stuff like curses of undeath, complete memory wipes, permanent maiming curses, and life drain curses would all fall under this category. These curses are also the rarest and must obtain mod permission.

How does one get cursed?
While there will be opportunities to get cursed through various plots, in general curses are either obtained through gacha, or as a consequence to certain actions. Outside of plots and gacha, characters can get cursed by meddling around with sketchy magical tomes, or by angering one of the factions. Messing with Zodiac or POKEGO will result in relatively harmless and temporary curses, while messing with the Black Order will result in much more severe and often permanent curses. Player-run factions can also curse characters, and the level of severity will be up to the player who runs the faction (though forbidden curses must be cleared by the mods).

Can I have my character be cursed as part of their AU background?
You can! That said, depending on the type and severity of the curse it may take up points that you would've used for powers (for instance an animal curse would take all three points). You should include an explanation of how they were cursed in their AU background.

Are there any perks to being cursed?
Basically? No.

While characters might find some positives to their curses depending on what it is (like turning into a cat might be handy for sneaking, or having a stone hand makes a great paperweight) - unlike possessions, curses do not offer any additional power boost. They're meant to be a negative consequence after all!

How do you break a curse?
A variety of ways. When a character is cursed through plot or gacha means, they will generally have the option to make the curse temporary (unless it's a curse caused by severe actions such as murdering someone, but players will be warned beforehand of this). So for these temporary curses, it's a matter of just waiting them out for them to wear off. The general timeline for these is a day to a week of IC time.

However if a character is permanently cursed and looking for a cure, the easiest way is to get whatever cursed them to undo it. If that's not an option, we can figure out an IC way to go about curing it such as a special spell or action. If a character dies, they will also have the option of reviving with no curse (though they might get possessed, oops). However, it's just as likely (if this is what the player wants) that there is no cure for their particular curse - and the character just must learn to live and manage the curse as best they can.

What are the societal views of curses?
Among normal NPCs, curses are almost completely overlooked. Animal features aren't noticed and turning into a full animal will just get you treated like a normal animal, restriction and compulsion curses are treated as just the person being weird, and elemental curses are interpreted to be various things (stone hands are prosthetics, while moist people are just gross). Normal NPCs don't get any off feelings about cursed folks like they do with possessed people, so if you have trouble making friends it's because of your personality and not your curse.

Meanwhile among NPCS connected with paranormal, opinions are a bit more mixed but not as severe as possessed folks. While some NPCs will treat your curse with sympathy, other NPCs might shrug it off as "your fault" since it's well known that curses are usually caused by doing something you shouldn't. Depending on the person and how the curse manifests, they may occasionally get mixed up for a possession - which might cause some more severe treatment unless the confusion is cleared up. But outside of that, cursed folks are usually treated more mildly than the possessed.

Finally, if you have an animal curse, animals will be able to sense it and react accordingly, depending on the type of animal they are.

Can a character be both cursed and possessed?
If their luck sucks enough, sure bro.

Are there any restrictions on the curses?
Curses should not be ones that completely override a character's core personality. While a curse might have some influence over the character, it shouldn't completely change who they are as a person. Curses should also not give them any additional power boosts.

Characters can only have one animal curse and/or forbidden curse on them at a time.

Genderswap, permanent bodyswap, and curses that permanently ages-up a young character are off the table. The only exception are if it's a curse that comes from their canon that they can regain. If a character wishes to use magic to change their biological sex (ie, the character is trans), this isn't curse magic and you should talk to the mod about how to go about that!

Can characters with animal curses experience heat?
Look I know some of you are wondering this, so let's just get it over with.

Adult characters (18+) with certain animal curses have the option of experiencing heat cycles. In general, this will make the character hornier than usual. However, it should not be so strong that it'd completely override character sense of reason.

And as a quick aside since I know this is the natural follow-up question - whether animal features will appear in the bedroom is your own business man. The mod does not need to know everything. Please.

Where do I sign up to get cursed?
Curses can be signed up for when they occur in plots. If you are apping with a curse, please note it in the character app and it'll be figured out how many points it takes. Otherwise if you want it to happen while they are in the game, you can head over to the Major Character Update post!


code bases by tricklet