This is a story about an icebreaker game. Here is the game first.
In Japanese mythology, youkai (妖怪), or yokai in the romanization I prefer, are mythological creatures that are responsible for phenomena otherwise unexplained. They're basically ghost stories, but personified into various types that can recur, being tied to specific situations or places. Many pokemon are based off yokai stories. Touhou, of course, is premised on "where do all the yokai go when science makes us stop believing in them?".
The game is to explain a modern phenomenon - something #relatable, if you will - as the work a yokai. Your yokai must:
- Explain a phenomenon whose cause is not immediately obvious to common sense or elementary science (even if you do know the "true" cause)
- Cause the phenomenon via a specific mechanism (supernatural action)
- Be motivated by some feeling that's, ultimately, quite human
And for bonus points:
- Be able to be repelled, bargained with, or (if benevolent) summoned by a specific ritual or amulet (better if it's not falsifiable)
- Have a name (their japanese names are often quite literal)
Example: Did you ever wonder why so often you lose only one of a pair of socks in the wash? Well, the samuashi-bake (寒足化), who has a thousand and nine feet and thus a very high surface-area-to-mass ratio and thus is always cold, sneaks through your dryer tubes and takes them! She also has a prime number of feet, so prefers for them all to mismatch. You can ward her off by knitting your partner a sweater, which she will then steal after you break up (as she is also responsible for the sweater curse), then take pity on you and leave you alone forever. Of course, most who know of the samuashi choose to just suffer the lost socks.
You can use this game as an icebreaker! If you do, I hope you'll come back and tell me your yokais.
I'll post the story soon.
Edit: Part 2: modern yokai (a story)
