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Player Handle: (What you want to be known as.)
Preferred pronoun: (How you'd like us to refer to you.)
Contact: (AIM, DW PM, Plurk, Email all applicable forms.)

Series/Canon: (What're they from, yo. Please include a wiki link in this field - or a short blurb about the series if a wiki link is not available).
Character: (Who are you choosing to play? Feel free to include a wiki link to the character if you'd like.)

Biggest Fear: (What does your character fear most? If your character doesn't experience fear, what would unsettle, disturb, or bring out a strong - preferably negative - passionate response in them? Be as detailed as you like, from one sentence to entire paragraphs.)

Sample of your playing style: (This can be a link to previous game threads, dear_mun or musebox posts, something you've written out just now - etc. You may use whatever format you wish - prose, action, audio, video, text, etc.)

Additional Info: (Things we should know that didn't fit into any of the above fields. Remove if not applicable to the app.)

<b>Player Handle</b>: <b>Preferred pronoun</b>: <b>Contact</b>: <b>Series/Canon</b>: <b>Character</b>: <b>Biggest Fear</b>: <b>Sample of your playing style</b>: <b>Additional Info</b>:

The items listed here can all be found in the apartments or when wandering about the town. They range from the uncommon to the extremely rare and most are difficult to find. In some updates, we will say where some may be acquired.

RED TAPE - Red tape is your saving grace in the apartments. You wake up with one 50mm x 50m roll of it and are encouraged to use it sparingly but effectively. It will prevent ghosts from entering areas you have taped up. This is an extremely rare commodity in the game. You are very unlikely to have more than one roll on you at a time, unless you purposefully steal one from another resident.

CINNAMON CANDY - This candy is often a 'thank you' from the ghosts. It has no supernatural powers, but the taste is pretty unmistakable. Finding yourself waking up with some on your person or with the taste of it in your mouth may mean that you are up for some interesting experiences.

THE NOH MASK: The mask was originally owned by an actor in the fifteenth century. He was well-known for his roles as human men who through action turned into demons and vengeful spirits. He died in the middle of one of his performances and the mask that he was wearing was declared cursed. It was hidden away for hundreds of years. It eventually came into the possession of the apartment building's original owner. He mocked the curse by putting the mask on.

Later that night, he entered the apartment building and slaughtered several of the tenants on the first floor before disappearing.

FOX STATUES - These statues vary in size and can be found all through Jigoku, but are carefully hidden and will only be revealed during certain events. Giving them to the fox spirit at the shrine may make good things come your way.

ARCADE TOKENS - Can be found around the apartments. Will allow you to play the games in the arcades. They're not exactly common, but certainly more plentiful than the other things in the list.

ARCADE PRIZES - Can be won at the arcade. Give them to the ghostly children you meet. They may help you out in difficult encounters in return. Up to three can be kept on someone's person at one time; four or more will cause incredibly bad luck in the form of more violent spiritual encounters.

CORN - Found in the grocery store. Can be fed to the Crows to make them want to help you.

JIGOKUBERRIES - The handheld smartphones that everyone wakes up with. They connect to the apartment's intranet and can make text, audio, and video calls up to it. Handy for mobile contact. Characters may find replacement ones in empty apartments or in some areas of the town.

COMPUTERS - Everyone has a laptop or a desktop with a webcam, keyboard, headset, and mouse in their apartments. Most are middle range and not exceptional machines. They have information, games, and data on them - think unwiped harddrives. More importantly, they can be used to make easier posts of video, audio or text data, and also allow for a drawing program to be used when uploading to the intranet. Other computers may be found in certain areas such as the library, police station, and homes in the town. The legible ones here will almost always have something worthwhile to read on them.

SHOES - These shoes will always appear as your heart's desire. They appear when you're alone - a pair of nice pumps you never thought you'd be able to afford, or those desperately-needed new sneakers after weeks of running around in muck around the town. However they appear, they are enticing. Should you take them for yourself though, be aware that they have a rather nasty history... and eventually, a former owner may return to collect them.

SALT - Salt is an extremely rare commodity in Jigoku; possibly even rarer than the the red tape. It is one of the only surefire ways to purify an area. In the unlikely event that you find some, hang onto it. You don't know when you might need it most. It also doubles as a condiment but your fellow trapped souls may kill you if you use it that way, even if it does make the food less bland.

Locations


The Apartments
The apartments are where you will be staying. You'll be assigned a room after your app is accepted. Nine stories high with 50 rooms per floor. Some of the rooms unoccupied are easy to break into, giving insight into who might have lived in them before, while others remain oddly barred at all times. The 4th floor is possibly the most dangerous floor on in the whole complex. Onryō will be abundant, and the few Yūrei will be especially insistent in clumping around people using powers. The squeak of rusting wheels will follow you, as well as the grunts and whispers of someone close by but always out of sight. The feeling of malice and hunger here is more potent than the other floors. Still, tenants can live on this floor if they so choose.

There is a working elevator for every floor that can go from the basement to the roof but now and again it simply ceases to function. In this case, there is a set of stairs leading from bottom to top with a landing at every floor. Please note that the stairwell is dim - the lights flicker and threaten to shut off at any moment and even if it is dry, there might be a steady dripping sound all the same. Sometimes there is a wet, slithering plop sound from below, towards the basement and others have complained of the click of claws grinding against concrete following them.


Apartment Interior
Layout
Each apartment is a two-bedroom suite set up in the manner indicated in the link. Decor is different in each apartment, sometimes eerily suited to it's new owner, and sometimes painfully opposite.

Please see the Apartment Listing for taken apartments!

The Laundry Room
The horrors of a laundry room are usually limited to faded colors and dingy whites. But a laundry in the basement of a haunted apartment is another story. Yellowed newspapers found throughout the apartments have a front page story about a missing girl, age seven. Her sundress was found in one of the washing machines, still stained with blood after several cycles. Exactly what happened to her and the location of her remains is unknown. While in the laundry room, one can expect flickering lights, water turning a strange rust color, the occasional garment coming out with a blood stain, or the image of a little girl standing behind you reflected in the glass while loading or unloading the machines.

Map

The Garden & Hedge Maze
Closest to the town side of the area, the garden contains several fruit-bearing trees and rows of carefully-tended vegetables. These fruits and vegetables may well be a lifesaver in dire situations, but try not to wake up the Scarecrow.

Towards the back of the garden, a large, sprawling hedge maze in evident disrepair is overgrown and sprawling towards the mine shaft. Once inside, there are numerous paths to choose the way to the center. (Sometimes a prize awaits you there, but at other times, you will find nothing at all. It's a gamble every time.)

A word of warning for the maze. Don't go in too close to sunset. At nightfall the gate swings closed and there's no getting out until morning. Strange noises and footfalls may follow you as well. you aren't the only thing there, after all.

The Coal Mine
Dingy, disused, and filled in. The entrance to the coal mine is littered with warning signs and old, rusted machinery. Broken tracks lead down into the blocked off tunnel. It still goes down a fairly long distance, though, so watch your step...

Abandoned Factory Building
blah blah blah

The Town Houses
(Numbered from 1-6 on the map) Unlike the apartments, these homes are large and lavish and evidently owned by people with a lot of money. The largest of the houses must have belonged to the mayor and his family at one time.

While these may seem like ideal places to move into, they are plagued with terrible spirit activity. They will throw furniture around, break down walls, drag people into them, harm or kill anyone in the houses - etc. They are completely unlivable. However, there are things to loot in here, so you might think it's worthwhile.

The Hardware store
The store is well-stocked with ammo, weapons, and the materials needed for repairs. Occasional spare rolls of red tape have been known to show up here, but this is rare. Oddly enough, it's the one spot in the entire city where no ghosts have ever been seen.

Library
The library is two stories above ground and one below. There are some pieces of furniture and some computers in the building, but not nearly as numerous as the shelves lined with rows of dusty books. Thinking of doing a little sleuthing on the town? Sadly it won't be as easy as that: everything about the town itself has been violently vandalized.

Still, you are allowed to take books out of the library to read in your apartments. Just be careful. The moment you step outside the building with them, they'll be stamped with a return date. Fail to return them for this date, and you'll find yourselves in for a heap of trouble that will end in maiming or death.

Police Station
The Police Station has an air of immense misery around it. It seems that inmates had been imprisoned in the cells and due to be released were left to starve to death. The cells, therefore, are always dark, oppressive, and difficult to be in.

The power is off in the station but you can go down to the basement to turn it on. This will light up the main room for the duration of your visit, allowing you to read over the rotting notes and mostly corrupted files on the computers. It will also allow you to find things like handguns, riot sticks, and ammo in the evidence locker.

But the cells always stay shadowed.

And hungry.

The Arcade
All kinds of games for your heart's content! Find a token around town, pop it into the machine, and play until you run out, win, or lose! Be careful of that last one, though. Losing a game might involve getting slapped or having an item of yours stolen! Fortunately, you can also win prizes from the games. These small toys can be given to ghost children, if you're feeling generous.

The Diner
The Diner is full of delicious food that you can eat for free! The invisible chef seems delighted to feed you. The only problem is that no matter how much you eat, you'll never get full.

The Love Hotel
It's tacky and it's proud of it. It's also run by a Jorōgumo, and she's delighted to have food around. If two people walk in, she'll serve them and treat them like a couple even if they aren't, and there's a 50/50 chance that she'll leave it at that. Come in on your own, especially if you are a man, and she'll prey on you with all the guile and attraction a sly old spider can think of.

There's lots of room in here - so long as you don't mind theme rooms, that is. You're also likely to find a supply or two for more intimate needs in this place.

The Well
Older than the city itself and located in a densely packed forest. There are several stories connected to the well, but the most popular is that of a young girl who claimed to see ghosts all around her. Taking this to be a sign of evil, her mother sewed several heavy stones into her dress and dropped her into the well. There's no proof that the story is actually true, which may be a small comfort to anyone who's forced to go there for water when the apartment's plumbing isn't working.

The Shrine
The shrine is mostly shrouded by the forest by this point; the trees and undergrowth have been allowed to grow all over the path. Unfortunately, it's not a comforting place at present. All the fox statues are gone, leaving only empty places where they once stood. Graffiti covers the walls and the inside has been turned over.

Despite the desecration, fox spirit lives in this shrine. She's not precisely against you, but neither is she exactly for you. Do something for her and she might reward you, though.

The Lake
The lake used to be an open air theater and is home to a rather shy beast. You might see a tentacle or two waving languidly out in the still water at times, but not often, and certainly not for long. Stay on the shore and this big beast won't bother you.

Of course, sometimes there will be enticing things in the water, or on the stage platforms out on it. Maybe you're willing to risk that big thing skulking in the caves under the theater stands for a roll of red tape or a fox statue.

Or then again maybe you're not.

It's not like you know if it's friendly.

Grocery Store
It has the appearance of a normal convenience store...perhaps a little too normal. The interior is the brightest place in the city, and that and the shelves stocked with necessities and goodies definitely entices. But once the automatic doors slide closed behind you, there's no way of knowing what might happen. Lights flicker on and off. Cans fly from the shelves by an unseen force. Pallet jacks zoom around in the back room. Sometimes the doors won't open for you, and you're left with the choice of navigating the aisles and stock rooms for another way out, or wait for your friends to come and rescue you.

Sometimes the experience is worth it if you manage to make it out and back to the apartments with a loaf of bread and a gallon of juice. Or you may open up that can of tomato soup and find it replaced with blood. A package of ham and cheese that looked fine in the store will be half-consumed by maggots when you pull it out of the bag. And don't even ask what falls out of the cracked eggs...

The Hospital
Located at the western edge of town, where the sun always seems to be setting. While it's a safe bet that supplies for injury and sickness can be found there, that's not all. Visitors are forced to enter at the basement level and have to decide between the seemingly functioning elevators or the pitch black stairwells. This is also where the hospital morgue is located. You'll find nothing but stainless steel tables with sheets and toe tags laying on them, as if the bodies just stood up and walked out.

Disembodied voices randomly call out over the loudspeakers on the First Floor, alerting hospital staff of emergencies. The ghosts of patients roam the hall, but they ignore you. The ghosts of doctors is another story. They rush at you suddenly, grabbing you and trying to pin you to a hospital gurney. But the spirits of nurses, pristine white angels of mercy, might save you from a gruesome surgery behind the blood-splattered doors of the ER.

The Second Floor is obviously the children's ward, which is probably the reason for the overwhelming sadness that's felt there. Sometimes the feeling is enough to drive away those who got past the horrors of the first floor. Ghosts seen here are naturally the ghosts of children, mischievous but not harmful. They play their own brand of hide-n-seek, appearing and disappearing suddenly in front of you. They laugh along with their game, but eventually the laughter turns into crying. Then the crying turns into screaming. The hallways become filled with cries of fear and pain of children that you can't even see, much less help.

The third floor is where you'll find what you were looking for. It's stocked with medication and first-aid supplies, and the Chapel that's located on this floor may be the reason that you're left alone by the nasties of the other floors.

But you do still have to get out.

The Train Tunnel
Some believe that the train tunnel is the ticket out of the city. Unfortunately, this is not the case: it's blocked off by an impassable landslide.

But sometimes, light can be seen on the other end, bright and promising. The tunnel is long, and at some point you'll lose sight of the mouth. The tunnel becomes pitch black. You're forced to feel along the walls for navigation, walls that are unpleasantly slick and have deep gouges in them. Any light source that you bring with you can only do so much to combat such a complete darkness. There's what's to be expected inside an abandoned train tunnel: vermin, debris, stagnant air. And a train. The sound of the whistle is distant at first, giving the impression that you'll be out of the tunnel before you have to share it. But it catches up with you quickly. The sound is deafening and fills the tunnel, giving the impression that even if you press yourself against the wall, it may still strike you. You wouldn't be the first to think this. There are fingernails embedded in the tunnel walls.

The train is never seen but it's definitely felt. It races through the tunnel and seems to take the oxygen with it. Many will pass out. The tunnel is freezing when you come to, but the light on the other end of the tunnel looks closer than ever. Run towards it...

And you'll find yourself back where you started.


The Mall
The sole source of clothing, shoes, and a few luxuries in the city. Even so, the distance between it and the apartments plus the condemnable state of the building make it a place not to be visited frequently. And if that doesn't deter you from the promise of designer labels, maybe the dozens of moving mannequins will.

The Carnival Grounds
The carnival is located in a smaller canyon twisting away from the town itself. When it opens in summer, it contains every sort of ride and attraction imaginable. Some good, some bad, some just plain bizarre. In its off-season, one will find nothing but the broken, rusted remains of rides and buildings. It's badly haunted in the off-season, and it's not advised to go there.

+ Jigoku Apartments is a drama-free game. While we all love IC drama -- and it's inevitable in a setting like this -- it shouldn't bleed into OOC interactions.

+ Communication is key! Oftentimes conflicts come from a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication. We believe our players to be mature enough to handle any conflicts that might arise between themselves through calm, polite discussion. If a conflict truly looks to be unsolvable, or a mediator is needed, please contact a member of the mod team.

+ You will not post offensive material OOCly. This includes topics such as rape or child abuse, posting shock images, refusing to cut and warn for explicit and/or gory images, as well as the use of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist slurs, even if used 'affectionately'. Characters using slurs or discussing these topics is one thing; there is no need for them to be used when out of character.

+ Content must be warned for in the comment heading of threads. Excessive gore, discussions of rape, abuse, and well known phobias are covered under this rule. Please be respectful of people and put these up even if you are not affected by the topics at all. A simple Warning: [topic] is all that is needed in the comment header.

+ Godmoding and metagaming are not welcome in this game. Godmoding is controlling another person's character or dictating exactly what will happen to him or her. Metagaming is granting your character knowledge that he or she should not have, even though you may OOCly know it. Both are considered poor roleplay practices. Don't assume; ask.

+ The current character limit is set at four (4) characters per mun. Any requests for more will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

+ We encourage independent roleplay, but please run any large plots (i.e., ones that affect three or more people) by a member of the mod team first. You will most likely be given the go-ahead! This isn't meant to control or squash player creativity in any way, but is meant more so we can work with you, if necessary, so that there's not too much happening and things all running into each other at once.

+ Please don't have your character dying every other day. While death is a very real part of the horror genre, to have it overused gets old quickly and cheapens the impact of what should be a serious event. At this point there is no cap on the number of deaths a character can have, but if we notice a trend in characters dying too often we will impose a limit. Please see the FAQ for more information on character deaths.

+ After acceptance into the game, please post with your character journal within two weeks of your acceptance date to confirm your commitment to the game. If something comes up and you're unable to make this timeframe, please notify a mod and an extension can be granted.


If there are any questions or concerns regarding anything listed above, please check the FAQ. If your answer is not found there, don't hesitate to contact a the mod team through a comment or PM the mod journal and we will address the issue as soon as possible.