Part 98: Vampire, Spellcard Rules
So as Blitz mentioned earlier on, Reimu's purpose in Gensokyo is to solve incidents. So far she's been involved in:1.) Something wrecks the shrine. She travels deep inside it, then to heaven or hell
2.) Ghosts invade the hakurei shrine. Reimu sorts them out.
3.) Time travellers come to gensokyo and everyone has a competition to see who will get a wish granted by them
4.) Youkai invade the shrine again. Reimu and Marisa travel to a mansion in the world of dreams
5.) Monsters pour out of a cave. Reimu and co. travel through the cave to hell to stop them
So as you can see, of the five incidents that we know of prior to EoSD, none of them had any impact on Gensokyo. Reimu sorted them out quickly, and because they were generally confined to the shrine, almost nobody knew that Reimu had solved any incidents.
Then came the vampire incident. But what is a vampire you ask? Well...
Glossary: Vampire
quote:
Intro- EoSD and others
A species of youkai. The only confirmed vampires existing since EoSD are the Scarlet sisters. They have many weaknessed, beginning with sunlight, but the species makes up for it with enormous strength.
Their basic abilities include superhuman strength which allows them to uproot trees with a single hand, and miraculous agility that grants them speed beyond what the eye can comprehend. A cry from a vampire holds enough magical power to call forth large quantities of enslaved demons. They posess the regenerative powers to reanimate their entire body overnight, as long as their head remains.
In PMoSS, it is written that "While each of their abilities have equals amongst other species of youkai, vampires are the only species with stellat capabilities in everything" and that "amongst youkai with short histories, they possess the largest amount of power".
On the other hand, their weaknesses are many, such as weakness to sinlight, the inability to cross flowing water, and so on. They are supposedly also weak to garlic and silver weapons, but the validity of that claim has yet to be proven. It seems that crosses have no effect on them either.
Since vampires can be considered a type of "devil" or "oni" they are sometimes thought to share the same weaknesses. In particular, fried beans have been depicted to cause burns to them. However in SSiB, Remilia's right hand was supposedly burned to pieces from Patchouli's trap, yet it healed in an instant. Thus, such depictions of burns and weak points are somewhat doubtful.
Remilia has also been shown to be perfectly capable of going out in the sunlight with a parasol, and looking at her reflection from the lake without any problems.
In the book BAiJR. Patchouli put forth the possibility that it was her way of camouflaging her "fatal weaknesses", but the authenticity of those claims has yet to be verified.
Additionally, in PMoSS, it is written that vampires "first appeared several centuries ago", whereas the folklore of Europe records the first reports of vampires in history as over thousands of years ago. This implies that Gensokyo's vampires are not linked to the vampires that supposedly existed in reality.
It would perhaps be more accurate to suggest that Gensokyo's vampires are more related to the image of vampires that exist in modern day, the 15th century man known as Vlad Tepes from Bram Stoker's "Dracula"
Anyway, the specifics of the vampire incident are unknown, what we do know is that sometime between the events of Mystic Square and EoSD, Remilia attacked Gensokyo. For whatever reason it does not appear as though Reimu or Marisa were involved, instead PMiSS implies that a group of youkai gathered and managed to beat Remilia back, but that there was a lot of danger and risk involved.
It then became apparent that a new system was required, one that would allow youkai to flex their power and show off to humans to maintain the human's belief in them, but that would also not be life threatening to either party. Reimu and a powerful, prominent youkai named Yukari came up with the Spellcard Rules to facilitate this.
Glossary: Spellcard Rules
quote:
Intro: EoSD and others
Rules that govern duels in Gensokyo. Also known as the "Spell Naming Law". It essentially says to think up names for your techniques before doing battle, display them along with your opponent, then compete using them in all their beauty. Whoever runs out of stamina or techniques faster will be the loser.
When the Great Hakurei Barrier isolated Gensokyo from the outside world, the threat of outside invaders vanished. However, Gensokyo is a small place, which gave birth to a dilemma. If youkai were to attack humans freely, it would lead to the extinction of humans, which would then lead to the extinction of youkai themselves.
Youkai who could not attack humans would lose their reason for existence, and thus become weaker as a result. In order to resolve the dilemma, a fixed set of rules needed to be established that would allow humans and youkai to do battle and decide who wins and loses, without endangering either side's life. That was how the duelling method known as the spellcard rules came into existence.
The first major incident where spellcard rules were used was the Scarlet Mist Incident.
There were other duelling methods thought of as well, but as a result of the spellcard rules spreading far and wide, the other duelling methods are generally not used.
Although PMiSS writes that "the rules were decided by the shrine maiden", there are hints that the draft of the spellcard rules were written by a youkai. Perhaps it was the result of much consultation between the youkai and Reimu on the subject.
The rules that transform a battle to the death between a human and a youkai into something not unlike a game or sport is a strong expression of the general idea of the world of Touhou Project.
Of course, FMW adheres to the settings mentioned above... Although its place in the game is somewhat vague.
In the case of enemies, they use spellcards regularly.
For the controllable characters, the attacks whose battle animations include a spellcard activation circle are considered spellcard declarations for the sake of convenience.
(Please note that glossary updates will generally not be this narrative)