Doll Altars

Doll Altars Kanji 人形祭壇　（にんごう　さいだん） Game Fatal Frame III: The Tormented Located at Four areas within the Kuze Shrine Function Personal rooms for the Handmaidens. Status Sealed inside a dream

The Doll Altars are located in the Handmaidens' rooms. One of the four Tattooed Stakes is pierced through the middle of each altar. Each altar also holds a Purity Stone, used with the mechanism in the Tattoo Altar to raise the cage to the upper level.

Each of the four Handmaidens had their own Doll Altar (North, South, East and West). Red dolls were nailed to the walls in each of the rooms with stakes by the Handmaidens, as their primary duty when not looking after the Tattooed Priestess. These dolls represented the pains that Worshippers had offered at the Kuze Shrine. During the impalement, the Handmaidens would sing the lullaby to appease the pains.

The impalement and the Doll Altars also played an important role in containing the Rift after the Unleashing. Positioned at the four corners of the old Manor, the Doll Altars marked out the Shrine of Sleep, which was to prevent the Rift from spreading if the Rift Shrine failed.

Inspiration

• The Doll Altars were inspired by a house Shibata and Kikuchi visited in Tōno, where they saw a room with its walls covered in oshira-sama dolls. Oshira-sama are domestic deities in the form of dolls, worshipped in many parts of the Tohoku region. The specific rituals involving Oshira-sama are often closely-guarded secrets within the village or household, and are usually performed by female family members. Some believe that once you begin worshipping Oshira-sama, you must continue to worship it forever, or your household will be cursed.