What is Sin?

Sin is a mechanic of the game that all characters share. It is a fundamental part of the Crimson Wings mythology and ties all the characters together. All characters ARE sin afflicted. Humans, ghosts or demons, period.

Sin itself, for the purpose of the game, is a sort of palpable spiritual sickness and addiction. It begins as an emotional imbalance, a sort of spiritual injury, usually trauma induced, that spreads like an infection in humans and grows like a cancer.

Sin has several properties that are important to note.

1. It’s sticky. It’s very hard to remove. People afflicted with Sin Sickness require spiritual intervention in order to cleanse it from their souls, powerful spiritual intervention. And often times because of the nature of Sin Sickness, humans lack the spiritual power to cleanse it successfully without lengthy, ongoing treatment from a pure spiritually powerful person. Even in Death, sin continues to afflict the spirit. In the dead Sin manifests as some kind of affliction, the most common of which is chains or bindings around the arms and legs, but it can also manifest as marks, auras, or other afflictions on the ghost. To demons, sin is a source of power, and as they consume more, they grow and become more horrific and terrible.

2.It is magnetic. Sin is attracted to similar sin. Sin Sick individuals tend to be drawn to other sin sick individuals, particularly those who are sick with the same ‘type’ of Sin. People with a similar infection will be drawn together. This rule applies to the dead, and to demons as well. They are all attracted to their own sin. This is because of the third property.

3. It is hungry. Those afflicted with Sin experience a peculiar sort of hunger. In living humans, this manifests as a desire to wallow in, or carry out acts that indulges the emotions that helps the sin to spread and grow. Only living beings can grow fresh sin, for ghosts or demons, they must consume it in order to obtain more. The hunger is present in both ghost and demons, although ghosts may resist the urge to attack humans to feed on their souls. Demons physically hunger for sin, and will attempt to feed off spirts and living beings. Demons and spirits have a preference for a particular sin and will generally attempt to feed off people or other spirits or demons who fit their favorite flavor.

Causes of sin

Sin is a result of a toxic emotional imbalance that causes a sort of spiritual infection. Like physical infection, the process begins with a wound, usually a traumatic event that causes spiritual damage. This is often tragedy, such as the death of a loved one, unrequited or rejected love, loss of a child, a duty unfulfilled, betrayal, crime, violation, a major emotional trauma to a person.

This wound is usually never treated successfully, as it is so deep that it is as much spiritual as emotional. Therapy, Prison, punishment, drugs, fails to heal the wound which begins to fester into Sin Sickness.

Sin Sickness begins with mortals. Humans primarily. Most animals who suffer the poisoning are domesticated and normally die earlier into their afflictions than humans. Ghosts are the result of sin sickened people who have died. Demons come from two places. Ghosts who’ve absorbed enough Sin to evolve into demons, or entities from the places beyond that have come to feast on the Sin sickened people of this world.

Effects of Sin

Living Humans – Sin Sickness

Humans afflicted with sin sickness, depending on the type of Sin Sickness they are suffering from, will suffer for a period of time before succumbing to physical ailments afflicted by the Sin Sickness.

All individuals that find the House of Crimson Wings and Shrine of the Jade Mirror, are afflicted with some level of Sin sickness. ALL. No exceptions. In order to BE at the house, you must be afflicted.

Sin sickness manifests in three stages.

Stage 1 is vague, and very much depends on the sin type. See the Sin Types for Stage 1 symptoms.

Stage 2 is always a physical affliction brought on by the sin. This can include symptoms such as partial loss or reduction of of sight, use of a limb, lameness, arthritis, athesma, deafness, muteness, chronic pain, swelling, or physical marks such as blackening of the skin, unusual rashes, changes in hair or eye color. This is when most people begin to seek treatment or a loved one would bring them for treatment.

Stage 3 is Sin Madness. This begins with a worsening of symptoms, obsession with the behaviors that will grow sin. Pain becomes pleasure, pleasure becomes pain. The person will float between periods of manic behavior and lucidity. At this point, the afflicted can see spirits and demons even if they were not spiritual sensitive.

Humans at stage three are most susceptible to possession by demons and spirits, and are at their most ‘tasty’ to both as well. Normally it is only a matter of time before a person at Stage 3 is killed or kills themselves.

Humans that die afflicted Sin Sickness become ghosts, their spirits chained to the places they died.

Ghosts

Ghosts result when a human either succumbs to their sin sickness or is killed before they can be cured of it. Both things are known to happen in the House of Crimson wings. The dead remain afflicted with Sin, although it is no longer a source of harm for them.

Ghosts start in possession the total of the sin they had accumulated in their life time. Ghosts cannot generate new sin on their own, they need to consume/collect it from either living humans, other ghosts, or steal it from demons. The more sin a ghost possesses the more horrific and twisted it appears. Sin on a ghosts usually manifests in a visual form, chains and bindings being the most common, with markings and strange physical signs a secondary. Ghosts are always most drawn to humans who share their type of sin, as previously mentioned, and they suffer less than demons from the ‘sin hunger’, but cannot resist seeking it out. It’s very comparable to an addiction, a smoker trying to quit smoking when someone is having a cigarette right next to them. They can resist, but its very hard and tempting.

While ghosts cannot physically harm a human, they can scare the crap out of them, influence them, influence the environment, possess humans or objects, and feed off their sin. Ghosts tend to miss their lives, and often try to force living beings to repeat or perform acts they did in their lives or acts that will intensify their sin sickness since the ghosts find it pleasurable, and satisfies their hunger temporarily. Although ghosts do envy the living, they do not LIKE the living. Some ghosts do, and will help, but the vast majority are selfishly suck in their own pain and will be more likely to be looking for something to alleviate their boredom or satisfy their own desires than genuinely want to help a human.

If a ghost manages to acquire enough sin they can ‘evolve’ into a demon, which makes them a completely different sort of entity.

Demons
Demons live on sin. They eat it, physically they need to consume it. Sin is their source of power, of influence. The more they consume, the more powerful they become. To be deprived of it, they starve, becoming aggressive. Unlike ghosts, demons can physically manifest themselves, and relish in sin soaked flesh. They will eat people, consume their bodies, but leave their souls for desert later.

The Demons of the house are highly individual, but all of them hunger for sin. The more sin a demon consumes the more powerful they can become, and usually the more ornate and horrific they appear in their true demon forms for those who can see them.

Demons are unnatural, supernatural creatures and cover a wide variety of beings we consider mythical. Most have more than one form, at least two, sometimes more than five or six depending on the level of power and sophistication. They are a hierarchical society, demons of lesser power always bowing to those of greater power, but also always striving to surpass their betters. Smaller demons are frequent prey to powerful ghosts and demons alike.

Demons are said to the originators of the Sin sickness disease, cultivating humans with it like livestock. As such, only a demon can truly purge a human of sin sickness entirely. Spiritually powerful humans, many of which can trace lineage back to a distant demon relative, can aid in moderating the disease, but most lack the ability to remove it entirely. Demons tend to delight in tormenting mortals, and their flesh, ravaged by sin, is the most tasty and delicious meal a demon can enjoy. As such they will prey on humans as much as they can, tormenting ghost when there aren’t any left, and moving on to the lesser of their own kind when no humans or ghosts are present for sport.

Game Play with Sin

The mechanic of sin exists for several reasons. It is tied into the history of the House itself and the Shrine. It also creates a bond and reason to interact with other players. Demons and ghost characters will be drawn to haunt humans with a similar sort of sin. Humans that share sin will be drawn to each other, and this has to be acted out by the players. How that attraction manifests, is up to the player, but it shouldn’t play out as happy fun time. Remember, this is horror, not a Disney movie.

The secrets of sin are very much tied into the story of the HoCW, and discovering and exploring the secrets of sin are part of what the characters should be doing. Most characters will not know or understand how sin works. But they are instinctively driven to follow its tenants. Humans will know next to nothing, ghosts will know only a little bit, and whatever they found out while they were alive (assuming they came to the house prior to death, which sometimes they don’t.), and most demons will know a little more, but still not everything about it. Humans, 99.5% of the time, will not know why they are where they are or that anything is wrong with them at first. They will learn of Sin as they explore the house. So please keep that in mind with characters. Do NOT meta game this aspect. Keep it secret if you discover things about the sickness unless its dramatically appropriate to reveal them.