This section catalogs the supernatural and dimensional effects of the curse, including mechanics, environmental changes, and progression.
Dimensional Slip/Isolation: The town shifts to an in-between realm; no rescue possible. Blizzard prevents escape; loops return wanderers. Stars misaligned, red-hued night sky. Winds whisper maternal/cosmic horrors (specific phrases as in timeline). Radios slip to unrelated Japanese time periods for disjointed glimpses of "outside."
Infection/Transformation: Black ichor spreads via bites, consumption, or dimensional exposure (exhaustion leads to itching/black blood, inevitable shibito fate). Shibito: catatonic, biting, gibbering prayers. Hybrids: ~80 (about 1/3 of population; ichor-descended villagers "activated" to seek woods, devour shibito, become dark spawn). Early symptoms subtle (e.g., mild cravings); advanced: goat-like pupils, intense black cheese cravings, viewing shibito as "tasty."
Animal/Environmental Mutations: Animals (fed ichor-tainted dairy) gurgle with black ichor internals, showing anomalies (wounds with black ooze, extra eyes, human-like appendages, extra mouth, other deformities); rabies frenzy triggered by harvest/dimensional slip.
Electricity Anomalies: Flows despite substation's aged ruin (looks 20 years abandoned/overgrown); time differential means "outside" decay hasn't caught up. Random brownouts/droops add tension, especially during investigations.
Red Herring Integration: Krampus blamed for disappearances/mutations. Villagers attribute events to science or folklore, never the cult/entity (mind control effect).
These subtle, recurring phenomena appear throughout the loop. They build dread, hint at the mythos, and offer elusive clues without direct spoilers. Use them to taunt, guide, or punish curiosity.
Whispering Winds The blizzard wind carries distorted voices: maternal lullabies in unknown tongues, children reciting names of the missing backward, or a low chant “Hizume… Hizume…” that grows louder near the woods. Listening too long triggers nosebleeds.
Frozen Reflections The pond and river ice show perfect reflections—except people in the mirror are one step behind, mouths moving a second late, or missing entirely while you stand there. At 11:55 the reflection sometimes smiles when you don’t.
Black Cheese Dreams Anyone who eats the “Kuroda Dairy” black cheese dreams of endless dark fields where faceless figures milk something vast and unseen. They wake tasting iron and with faint black veins under fingernails that fade by morning.
Clockwork Shadows Streetlamp shadows stretch wrong—too long, too many limbs, or forming goat horns on walls. They move independently when no one is looking directly at them.
Radio Bleed Every radio, even when off, occasionally leaks fragments: a woman’s voice counting down from 11:55 in perfect Japanese, or children singing Christmas carols with lyrics about “feeding the mountain.”
Animal Eyes Crows, dogs, and deer stare at people with too-human intelligence. Their eyes reflect not the viewer but a vast dark field under red stars. Some have extra pupils that open and close like gills.
Snow Prints Perfect barefoot child prints appear in fresh snow leading toward the woods or lodge ruins, but never away. They end abruptly, as if the walker stepped sideways into nothing.
Mirror Absence In certain houses and the ryokan, mirrors stop reflecting specific people for minutes at a time. The empty space shows only the room behind—until something else fills it briefly.
Itching Names People wake with names carved faintly into their skin—names of the missing. The letters itch unbearably and fade by evening, but the memory of the name remains sharp.
The Harvest Pulse Every few nights at exactly 11:55 the ground trembles once, like a distant heartbeat. Animals fall silent, lights dim, and those awake feel a sudden, overwhelming urge to walk toward the woods carrying something “precious.” Resisting leaves black bruises shaped like tiny handprints.
Shinto Shrine Anomalies:
The mother haunts shinto followers with nightmares and probes their minds every night. Her intentions are a mystery but often they will see a tall woman with long black hair wandering the shrine at night and in their dreams. They also haunted with imagery of Shub-Niggurath's desires.