Persona: Wild Hunt
Note: This is an original theme on Velvet Room MUSH. Thank you to everyone who helped integrate it! Files were primarily written by Ruzica Crvena's player with assistance from Eveline Deschamps.
The Premise
"Truth is like a surgery, it hurts but cures. A lie is like a painkiller, it gives instant relief but has side effects forever." - Unknown
Life is difficult.
Sooner or later, people will experience something deeply, deeply unpleasant. Hardship, tragedy, trauma; it's all just part of life, sooner or later. The strongest individuals are those that go on and endure all this and still come out the other end tempered and better for it. Humans love a good story of triumph, to celebrate their exemplars. But not everyone can be exemplary. For the rest of the flock...
Why not look away?
Turn back the clock. You have the power to rewind time. Go back to a point in time where everything was better. You don't have to worry about anything... yes, simply indulge in nostalgia and sweet memory. Look, there are wonderful spaces -- Foraines -- that will allow you to do just that. You'll positively be happy -- overwhelmingly happy. Wasn't that what was missing from your life all this time?
Or...
Perhaps you'd rather reject that.
In that case, you'd better get in touch with the Beast inside of you. That's right. If you're going to shatter the veil of memory, you'll need to Hunt. You'll be the one to prey upon it all -- that sickly-sweet veil of pretense that allows so many to avoid reality, in favour of a narrative that suits them. All you need is a cold, hard silver bullet to shatter that nice illusion...
And then, you'll be a Hunter, too.
The Concepts
Foraines - A mysterious cognitive phenomenon that traps a person's Shadow within a supernatural space that reflects that individual's desires. A Foraine, much like its namesake -- a 'fairground' in French -- is a deceptively positive and pleasant place, an escape from reality often viewed through rose-tinted glasses, with powerful draws of nostalgia and comfort.
Hunters - A Persona-User that has awakened from an Ordeal from being hunted by a Quarry within another's Foraine, achieved by people who have chosen to embrace the bestial desire to fight back and hunt those who have chosen to prey upon them. Hunters drive their Persona through a cognitive substance metaphorically anathema to them, an Impetus Ampoule, which manifests an impressive, complicated weapon by which they can engage in the hunt.
The Vibe
World-weary people with self-destructive tendencies prompting one to reach for toxic nostalgia, and the ways, both healthy and unhealthy, in which one fights (or not) against that. The youth that get caught in the wake of that, when they're yet still trying to come to terms with their own place in life and where they belong.
Letting go and allowing oneself to heal, and subsequently, the ways in which we say we're letting go and yet don't, and let wounds fester for decades and decades upon end, ruining one from the inside out and turning us all into monsters.
Family, and generational trauma, and how easy it is to inflict your pains upon the next generation, even when you aren't actively trying to. What would you do for family -- who really is your family? How far would you go for them?
Core to the theme is the topic of avoidance and acceptance. In today's world, it's incredibly easy to get overfed with a steady diet of nothing but the worst things happening all over all the countries to people you have and will never meet. What if you just simply turned away from all that? Stop doomscrolling. Don't touch grass. Just come play in a fairground tailored just for you where all the bad simply never has been. Who cares? It's all terrible. It always has been, it always will be. What're the consequences of that? Do you care?
And how much is it going to suck to have that be challenged? Yet, if you never do that, you'll never move on. What're the consequences of shattering someone's escape, when in this precarious age we've become very accustomed to easy escapes? By what means are we able to start the journey of healing to get back up on our feet, when the temptations to backslide are myriad?
The aesthetic is based around the videogames Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Bloodborne, and French culture, amongst other things. Come indulge in extremely fancy 18th and 19th century hunting apparel cribbed straight from the Brotherhood of the Wolf, wear a cravat, make your cognitive boom hammer explode with the satisfying click of a trigger, and say French swearwords a lot, we're all adults here.
The Players
The Wild Hunt - A group of veteran Persona Users who began their work in Paris, France twenty years ago and now operate out of Kagurazaka, Tokyo. Dedicated, professional, and ruthless, they deal with the supernatural phenomenon known as Foraines as well as others common in Japan, but pursue their own mysterious agenda and are quick to oppose those they think have taken the wrong path, in a dogmatic attempt to save others from themselves.
Kanae Fuyuki - A Shujin student trying to balance the Tennis Club, her own social life, and mysterious warnings from her dreams about the end of the world.
The Personas
Hunter-style Personas are often hunters of some form, as per the name, but also have a few other options.
- Monster slayers and folkloric heroes
- Beasts of myth and folklore
Leaders of the Wild Hunt in folklore are all valid candidates for a Hunter-style Persona.
THE CONTACTS
Questions and ideas can primarily go to these two fine individuals!
THE CREDITS
Big thanks to everyone in the Wild Hunt and Kanae Fuyuki for their assistance in bringing this to fruition! Couldn't have been done without them.
Writing Credits!