AU Information Post (In-process)

[zenithrewinder]

This is a catch-all for all History deets, character changes, racial commentary, worldbuilding, and whatever else comes to mind. That said, this is going to be a disgustingly huge post, so read at your own risk. To those who don't want to read a disgustingly huge post about stuff you don't care about, here's the important bits.

In Emerald, Sakuya has recently finished the Imperishable Night storyline and returned with her gaggle of idiots. Everything after that has not occurred. Yet.

Now for those who do want to read a disgustingly huge post, it starts off with general large-scale changes - locations, races, the PC-98 era, etc - followed by everyone's favorite main characters, then each comment after will be about the specific game.

Links below if you're looking for something specific and you're lazy.

---

• Locations

• Races
    • Demons and Spirits
    • Lunarians, Magicians and Familiars
    • Gods and Vessels

• History: The PC-98 Era
    • Highly Responsive to Prayers
        • Characters

Comments

History: The PC-98 Era

[zenithrewinder]

The PC-98 games are actually somewhere between historically accurate and legends, and are all about Reimu's predecessor. Like the later games, they all follow one over-arching plot, starting with the first break through the Hakurei barrier in history and ending with the predecessor's death.

And things to keep in mind while going through this - Marisa, Alice, and Yuuka are the exact same people as they were in PC-98. Marisa and Alice were adorable little kids and Yuuka is still a huge monster. The predecessor Hakurei tended to solve things through physical violence rather than Reimu's magical. Additionally, she never told her first name to people, as she wanted to be known as the super-stoic badass Hakurei maiden, not some type of mortal with a human side.

So in legend-style stories, she's known as the Hakurei Maiden of Resolution (Reimu is 'of Paradise'). To the people who actually knew her - Marisa, Alice, etc - they affectionately call her Miko. Sounds like a name when it's actually just her position. She was cool with it. For simplicity's sake, she will be called "Miko" for the rest of this segment.

Now for the fun parts.

Your Protagonist:
The Predecessor Hakurei, and considered by many in Japan to be the last "true" Gensokyo protector. Her eventual death signified the loss of a woman who tried to revive the Hakurei's lineage, and Reimu would just give up on it entirely and migrate to find a new paradise. The legends of her godlike power and miracle-like solutions are myriad, but most of them are fake with only five still holding any truth.

The first game takes place when Miko was still a teenager and takes her ascension into ass-kicking. The latter four are in her elder years, after having a daughter and the escalation of the Makai incident. Her token weapons were the Hakurei Orbs, which she had eventually taken to throwing at things that needed to die. In her later years, she trained to be able to use them in tandem with martial arts to beat down her opponents with brute strength. The exorcism blessing helped a bit too.

As an adult, she took to being a mother figure to most of the village and helped reintegrate humans who were corrupted by the world's outside influence. The most relevant of these being Marisa, who would spend her youth driving her insane, babysitting Reimu, and helping Miko out whenever she required help with something that couldn't be solved with a fist to the jaw.

Highly Responsive to Prayers

[zenithrewinder]

"Gensokyo" is a name given to the barrier that protects a decently-sized village from the maddening effects of the world around them. How the barrier was made is a secret long since lost, but two things are known: the founding date, which is celebrated once a year. And that it is protected by the Hakurei line.

The shrine used to be praised with a highly-respected god and many donations, until one day when the barrier - after centuries of safety - cracked open from the inside, and the area started being tainted. The shrine slowly lost followers, the God slowly lost power, and Miko tried to hardest to repel the infestation with prayer and magic. Eventually, on one of her travels to the village for a ceremony, she would return to a destroyed shrine.

This would also be the day the Hakurei lineage decided to stop being one of protection and prevention, and one that actively got involved in problems to stop them. A travel to the Hakurei's God's sacred tomb and a period of deep prayer and reflection allowed the God to be "reborn", in a sense. It responded to Miko and passed on its true blessing to Miko - purification - and placed a highly-concentrated amount of this power in two scrying orbs used to pray to it.

Then, rather than training with her new power, Miko immediately went to fix the problem. What a go-getter.

Changes from Canon:
Rather than two routes, the first story takes place in the course of one route with Konngara as the final boss and Sariel as the "extra" (or stage 6, if you prefer). Here's a shorthand of stage comparison for the lazy types.

Stage 1: Shingyoku
Stage 2: Yuugen Magen
Stage 3: Elis
Stage 4: Mima
Stage 5: Konngara
Stage Final: Midboss Kikuri, Boss Sariel

The story starts at the initial break point of the barrier, then traveling into the dimension between reality planes to kick in the teeth of whoever broke through in the first place. Later on, between this game and the next, this specific dimension will be come to known as Makai and starts a whole new party of fuckery.

HRtP: Characters - Normal Route

[zenithrewinder]

Shingyoku
Gatekeeper
No name, and less of a "person" and more like a really elaborate spell, guarding the human-side version of the barrier break. Its actual physical form was an entire false shrine the humans within Gensokyo were fooled into worshiping. When Miko went to war against it, it was against the switching three forms of a shrine maiden, the head priest, and a cracked copy of the Hakurei purification orbs. This last one is actually its core and serves as a lesson to Miko that sometimes? Just throwing a ball at a problem is enough to make it scream in undying agony and dissolve into non-existence.

Yuugen Magen
Evil Eyes
This creature doesn't even have a name, funnily enough, as it's just an elaborate spell blocking the other end of the dimension rip between Gensokyo and Makai. Its true form is actually the energy that runs through its runes - similar to Shingyoku. Said energy occasionally forms the images of people, but it doesn't have any true sentience. It's destroyed without much fanfare either, but throwing holy tennis balls at eye balls had to be fun.

Elis
Innocent Devil
One of the countless demons to reside in Makai, most frequently found on contract as the familiar of witches. She has incredibly high use for the upkeep of multiple runes with minimal power loss, but falls short in memorization and casting speed. Thus, Elis has peak performance when used to maintain spells already made by the caster, as the complexity has no influence on how she tracks spells. A bit of a ditz and had the bad luck of having a protagonist charge right at her, and immediately after her defeat she runs away to her master for assistance.

Mima
Vengeful Ghost
As of this game, Elis is her familiar and helper. While not borne of Makai, she resides there to drain the ambient toxin in the air to power her own magic, and is the one to first question why Miko doesn't seem to take any effect from the miasma. Mima is a bit haughty, manifesting as taunting and demeaning everything around her, but holds high praise for magicians and those with true power. In exchange for a duel, she agrees to point Miko to who broke the barrier between worlds. After Konngara's defeat and re-sealing, she similarly shoos her in Sariel's direction - the monster that set Konngara free in the first place.

Konngara
Astral Knight
A dude. Sealed in the ruins of a castle he once ruled, no one really remembers what he was. Maybe a demon, maybe an Avatar, maybe just a human who gained too much power, maybe he was even an Outer God. Of the two who know the answer, one isn't in this game and the other isn't talking, so who knows. His body became cursed into the form of a chained stone statue, which led to such an eerie quiet around his abode it became known as the Silent Temple. When Miko encounters him, parts of him remain stone, still chained to his prison, while parts have regained his flesh. The rip into Makai initially opened just from the backlash of his seal breaking and, since he had nothing to actually do with the rip, resealing him did nothing to fix the crack. But at least it was a problem solved.

Kikuri
Hellish Moon
Not the actual goddess, but simply a sacred mirror that gained sentience from being in Makai for too long. It's original use was to keep the Ruins of Vina from releasing their corruption outwards, and it reverts to that role once Miko purifies it. Became twisted from Sariel's aura and followed Its commands blindly, including purifying the seal on Konngara to break through the dimensions.

Sariel
Angel of Death
Androgynous. Fallen Angel. Avatar of Nyarlathotep. Sariel was (and is still) a representative of the Lovecraftian terrors, and one of the small handful that first made contact with humans. It gave them magic, the knowledge to use it, and the thirst for more power to further their corruption. Eventually, it would be forcibly trapped during Makai's creation and at some nondescript point afterward, was sealed by Makai's residents themselves. It speaks no words, only able to deliver feelings and intent mentally, but is understandably unfathomably furious about being sealed away in an already sealed dimension, and set forth a series of events to access Earth once more. Actually succeeded at this - in that Miko never repairs the crack and Sariel is never fully resealed - but gets Its ass beaten so badly It lost the ability to keep Its form. Many years later, with the revival of Its cult in London, Sariel Is beginning to regain Its power and will probably fuck up some shit later.