Dark Hour, Tartarus, and Related

The Dark Hour

A hidden time that begins at the strike of midnight every day that lasts at least, but is not always limited to, a single hour. During this time, the world takes on a sickly green hue, the moon appears huge and yellow, water turns blood red, and people with neither the Potential nor a Persona are sealed within coffins and frozen in space.

The moon's phases, curiously, don't line up with the phases outside the Dark Hour, and indeed are disjointed even from each other. Sometimes that huge yellow moon is a waxing or waning crescent; sometimes it's a half-moon; sometimes it's a waxing or waning gibbous; sometimes it's new and not present at all. It changes from night to night with no sense of continuity--with one exception. Sometimes the moon appears very nearly full but in a state of waning brightness in a phase called "izayoi," or one night past full. When this phase appears, it means a full moon will occur during the Dark Hour in a few more nights. Once it appears, so too will an extremely powerful Shadow called a Full Moon Shadow, which is discussed more thoroughly elsewhere.

All things powered by electricity cease to function during this time, including technology that relies upon Kotodama. Only certain devices with a Plume of Dusk as a component are able to function at all. The exceptions are smartphones with the Meta-Nav app; during this time, if one turns on their smartphone, the Meta-Nav will instantly load, though no other functions of the phone will work.

The Dark Hour is a global phenomenon. Mindless Shadows exist worldwide during this time and will prey on anyone that isn't protected by their coffins, which means that Apathy Syndrome is also global. The majority of Persona communities and the Rumormongers of Sumaru City do not know of Tartarus appearing over Gekkoukan High School during this time, or that Tatsumi Port Island has more Shadow activity and Apathy Syndrome cases than average, due to a well-orchestrated cover-up by the Kirijo Group.

As of game start, most player characters will have experienced the Dark Hour and are likely to have participated in a loose effort to combat Shadows preying on people at night. Some groups other than SEES have probably seen Tartarus or perhaps even tried to explore it, but do not yet understand its significance.

OOC Minutiae

• The Dark Hour always lasts at least an hour, but the exact time it lasts is variable. For example, if you engage a Full Moon Shadow near the end of the Dark Hour, it won't end until 5-10 minutes after the supernatural disturbance has ended, even if it becomes a marathon chase of three to four hours.
• Unless it's something specifically bought into a scene by the players involved, or approved by staff, the Dark Hour should never end for dramatic reasons that render the characters unable to handle the consequences of something during the Dark Hour due to their supernatural abilities no longer functioning. A good example is someone being shot at the same moment the Dark Hour ends.
• Since our Mementos travel integration will send people back to where they entered, please always take this into account as a scene runner. Try not to end a scene by saying, "The Dark Hour ends," as that prevents reactions to events or interactions. At best, say, "The Dark Hour will soon come to an end," implying there's maybe 5-10 minutes before it's over.
• The disjointed lunar phases are a change for Velvet Room MUSH to ensure the Full Moon Shadows can still attack on a full moon without forcing the player base to adhere to the lunar schedule and not their own. Scheduling for big plot events is already hard enough!

Tartarus

A tower of impossible, unearthly geometry that stretches into the heavens and glows strangely in the moonlight, with blood-red fluid flowing off certain parts and vanishing into nothingness. Tartarus grows out of the site of Gekkoukan High School every night during the Dark Hour, and its structure changes every single time. SEES has made it its mission to explore here, believing it to be key to erasing the Dark Hour forever.

What seemingly doesn't change about it is the form each block of Tartarus takes in its architectural aesthetic, even if everything else about it seems to. Every so often, one might find teleportation pads that appear manmade and can ferry people back and forth from the ground floor to as high as they've explored, prompting one to wonder if they're truly supernatural or the fruits of past scientific achievement.

Within is the largest nest of Shadows known in the world and the occasional person drawn to their doom. That doesn't mean there aren't 'friendly' faces. Trish in particular sets up shop here every night, knowing that she can corner the market on healing to SEES and other explorers of the tower, and the Velvet Room is nearly always close by, offering its services to young Persona Users.

On occasion, unawakened people and cats can end up in Tartarus, necessitating rescue.

OOC Minutiae

• Tartarus uses a unique currency called Twilight Fragments, gathered from strange growths that form within the Dark Hour. One uses Twilight Fragments to open chests or activate 'healing' clocks. These growths occur most frequently within Tartarus.
• The clocks work by 'rewinding' injuries and fatigue away. They're technically cheaper than Trish's fees, but one might be sorely tempted to pay anyway once one realizes activating clocks means risking being unable to open chests containing impressive rewards for exploration.
• The Velvet Room that appears is the Persona 2: Eternal Punishment version of it, and it does so in the same way as in the middle of dungeons. Wild Cards get their own private entrance in the lobby of Tartarus. The Velvet Room will never be present during a crisis in which it could offer succor from the dangers of Tartarus; that is not its role.
• Shuffle Time can occur after Mindless Shadows in Tartarus are defeated, but they cannot be negotiated with.

Twilight Fragments

The glowing blue crystal is the Twilight Fragment, not the creepy Tartarus hands.

Twilight Fragments are a peculiar phenomenon within Iwatodai City and Tatsumi Port Island. They began to appear in reality after the events of Ten Years Ago rarely in the real world. While they take the appearance of ever-glowing shards of some crystalline material in reality those without Resonance fully cannot discern they exist, and will overlook them without fail.

The how and why they appear in the real world is fully a mystery. You're just as likely to find one beneath a persimmon tree or being hoarded by the local cats, as you are beneath the pillow of someone who just had a brush with death in their sleep.

SEES and Strega are both aware that they can be utilized to open the elaborate chests within Tartarus, which all contain a mechanism that allows them to be inserted, one for each hollow present on the locking mechanism upon these chests.

Not only that, but Tartarus remains the greatest source of them, with them appearing out of the dark crystalline growths that appear all throughout the tower. Not all such growths contain fragments, the telltale 'blue' glow marks the ones that must be smashed to claim your prize.

So too will Velvet Room attendants at times dole these out as rewards for those who fulfill their most heartfelt requests.

OOC Minutia

• Cats can and will find Twilight Fragments almost without fail. Cats that get lost in Tartarus almost always have at least one in their keeping.

• SEES has no greater understanding of Twilight Fragments as a result of their connections. The Kirijo Group has not released any of it's findings on Twilight Fragments, mostly encouraging SEES to use them in the exploration of the Tower.

Full Moon Shadows

Exceptionally powerful Shadows that appear during the Dark Hour on the nights of the full moon. (Note that these are full moons specifically during the Dark Hour; its lunar phases don't necessarily correspond to the real world's lunar phases, and indeed are usually deeply disjointed. See the Dark Hour section above for more details.)

These Shadows have unusual powers associated with their Arcana, and leading up to their appearances, there are often mysterious events that can affect people en masse, causing unusual behavior and typically more cases of Apathy Syndrome.

After each of their defeats, the Apathy Syndrome cases around where they appeared decrease substantially, often with at least a few of them recovering miraculously.

It is mostly SEES that are familiar with them, having fought several by the start of the game. However, Strega is familiar as well, having been tipped off to their importance in SEES's goal of erasing The Dark Hour.

The New World Order's leadership is also familiar, with Hisataka Shinjo noting it's imperative that they prevent SEES from destroying them all if there's any hope for their World Without Sin.

OOC Minutiae

• The Full Moon Shadows need not appear only in Tatsumi Port Island! Anywhere in Japan is fair game to encourage crossover content. Note that while the Shadows will typically make the slow journey towards Tartarus night by night, as the night of the Dark Hour full moon approaches, they settle into a pattern, causing more and more supernatural incidents and cases of Apathy Syndrome in the areas they're in until the night when they make their appearance.

• To allow these Shadows to consistently attack on a full moon while also prioritizing OOC scheduling constraints, the moon in the Dark Hour exhibits disjointed phases. It will always conveniently be a full moon when a Full Moon Shadow attacks, with a few nights of a near-full moon beforehand to give fair warning.