When the Larvae Moult | The infection spreads | Post-mortem p.74

I wanted this game to be a psychological horror mystery with Lovecraftian themes. A main objective was for the Humans to feel confused, betrayed, and oppressed, but not totally hopeless until the last day.

To do this, I set about designing an experience that would subvert the traditional AYA? framework. I wanted it to be superficially very close to an AYA? game, but actually play very differently throughout. (As we'll see, I was only partially successful in this.)

The core mechanic of the game was that, instead of an informed minority of people killing innocents, it would be an informed minority discarding their previous bodies to take over a new one. I liked the imagery of describing this as a parasite moulting, like a bug larva.

The theme of Higurashi: parasitic mind control, as well as the title of the game, come from the 2006 psychological horror anime When the Cicadas Cry (more commonly known as Higurashi). The mountain village setting is based on the fictional Hinamizawa, which itself is based on the real Japanese village of Shirakawa-gou at the foot of the mountain Haku-san. I don't actually like Higurashi that much but it certainly had some interesting ideas that were ripe to pick for this kind of experience.

(I also wanted you all to stealth play an anime game without realising it. That was the real horror here.)

It's been pointed out to me that the aesthetic is also quite Resident Evil 4. This was unintentional but I definitely agree.

As some people noticed, Zwieselberg is a real place and at least some of my descriptions of the area were geographically accurate. (I was amused to learn Sat has actually visited the village.)

The writing style was primarily influenced by Lovecraft, sometimes through the lens of r/nosleep, which is a Reddit for indie horror short stories which I lurk. (There is also a lot of my normal voice in there. Around Day 5 I felt quite ill and perhaps also a bit fatigued, so by the end of the game the posts become less detailed and sometimes not consistently in-character. To those who were primarily interested in the story, I'm sorry about that.)

The name "Ariel" is both a pun and a reference to The Tempest, a play which I feel AYA? games echo in many respects. (I don't expect anyone but Clark to care about that last bit...!)

Several episodes of Stargate SG-1 were basically this game, and the Goa'uld define many of the mechanics of the Parasites.

In general the gameplay is less original than it might appear. The main concepts are ripped almost entirely from the 2016 forum game in which I was Dan's co-host, Cannibal House, which established the idea of daily Events which after a few phases became centred around a 'good' Day Shrine and a 'bad' Night Shrine. The subversion of a traditional 'good team vs. bad team' structure is of course based on Moggy's 2015 forum game Are You Infected?.

The main innovation in this game was probably the addition of simple dice-based roleplaying games to the Events, which people seemed to find very exciting. I think people will remember Mario's fight with the zombie long after they forget about the account-jumping and weird plot, and that was probably the highlight of the game for me. (That was the second of two classic moments from Mario in that event: I almost pissed myself laughing at "I Googled it"!)

Here is every special role, in the order in which their actions were resolved:

No actions associated with role

Alpha Parasite: As the Alpha Parasite, you are settled in your host and cannot change hosts. However, this renders you impossible to detect. Furthermore, as the wisest of the Parasites, you will receive occasional hints about the best course of action for the Parasites during Events. / If you die, a normal Parasite is chosen at random to become the new Alpha Parasite.

Free, instant actions

Sniper: Once during the game, at any time, you may PM me to assassinate a person. If successful, that person dies.

Counterintelligence Officer: Once during the game, at any time, you may PM me to rig a vote. If successful, the vote's outcome is set by you, regardless of the votes cast. This works on private ballots, public votes, or even decisions made by a particular person.

Night, long actions

Patrol: As a night action, you may patrol near a person. Your presence will prevent anyone from interacting with them during the night.

Tracker: As a night action, you may track a person. You will be informed as to the identity of anyone they visit or are visited by during the night.

Night, short actions

Parasite: As a night action, each Parasite may ask me to change hosts. To perform this action, name a player during the night phase. If successful, your current alt account dies and leaves the game, and you take over the named alt account. (This mechanism replaces 'wolf kills' in traditional AYA?.) When you take a different host, you gain any night abilities of that host.

Parasite Pupa: Your host's body temperature has increased significantly; you take advantage of this extreme immune response to fuel your increased metabolism as your body grows larger and larger within the human you inhabit. / You can no longer change hosts, as you are too deeply embedded now. / Instead, as a night action you may kidnap one person and cast them into the Maelstrom at Chalchmädere. Most ordinary people will be converted into a Parasite by this process. / If you die, your team must decide on a larval Parasite to throw into the maelstrom to be transformed into a Parasite Pupa. This will take up that person's night action.
N.B. The last part was very poorly phrased, so I decided not to enforce it. My original intention was that the Parasites needed to have at least one Pupa on their team at all times once unlocking the first one. But I used the confusing phrasing 'if you die', which didn't really ever apply (as Pupae are usually downgraded rather than destroyed), so I quietly dropped this rule.

Parasite Imago: Through the intensified power of the Maelstrom, you have reached the final stage of your life cycle. You no longer rely on a human host. Your grotesque form stands eight feet tall, glistening with mucus. You walk on four nimble, spindly legs, and your tentacular arms drag to your sides when not in use. / As a night action, you may cast two players into the Maelstrom. This ability cannot be blocked or witnessed by other night roles, and any night role that attempts to interfere will be killed automatically.
N.B. The condition for unlocking the Parasite Imago - to feed three Cold-Blooded into the Maelstrom - was never reached. It would have been difficult to hit this target without outright winning. If I had followed through on modifying the victory conditions when the Temples were discovered, this would have been more achievable. (I backed out of doing this because it would have been too complicated for an already-complex game.)

Biologist: You suspect that the bizarre and horrific behaviour in the village may be caused by some kind of brain-affecting parasite. As a night action, you may investigate a person. If successful, you will be informed as to whether or not they are a host to a parasite.

Lieutenant: As a soldier of rank, you are able to access the personnel manifest and the personal logs of the entire task-force. As a night action, you may choose one person and perform a background check on them. If successful, you will be informed as to whether or not they have been assigned special duties.

Spy: As a foreign intelligence agent in deep cover, your orders are to cause Detachment 10's mission to fail and slip out quietly during the aftermath. The victory condition of the Spy is for the evil on this island to prevail, and to still be alive at that time. / As a night action, you may choose one player to subvert. You gain that player's password and may do what you like to their account (bar breaking rules), including posting in the thread or sending PMs. Your action is then expended until that player dies, at which point you may use it again on a different player. / Your power relies on covert support from an outside agency. If you are killed or otherwise rendered unreliable, your handlers will choose a new Spy to support.

Cultist: You think that the evil on this island represents a higher power. You worship it, and you want it to succeed. The victory condition of Cultists is for the evil on this island to prevail, and to still be alive at that time. / As a night action, you may choose one willing participant to convert. That player becomes a Cultist (but does not gain the night power). How you find willing participants is up to you, but the action will fail if they are not willing.

Reactive roles

Lover: If X dies, you die.

At the start of the game, this was my internal list:

Of course, it was updated several times, with new recruits for the Parasites, host-changing, and people finding objects that upgraded their roles. I'll put those instances as story notes in the next section.

Background

Three thousand years ago, a malevolent entity created a race of parasites to subjugate early humanity. He operated out of a shrine near Stockhorn mountain, which in modern times is named Chalchmädere. A benevolent entity, in turn, gave the nearby humans the means to combat these parasites. He operated out of a shrine in Bürgli hill, near what is now the village of Zwieselberg.

The ancient people mostly destroyed the parasites, though a handful remained hidden in nearby marshes. Though they lost contact with their God, they managed to find the occasional host and breed - just a few at a time over many millennia - until they approached their previous strength.

A week before the game

A medical researcher by the name of Weber, who happened to live in the village, noticed personality changes in the people around him. Though suspicious, he carried on with his everyday business until one day while out on a walk a passer-by accosted him, tearing out her own throat and revealing a parasite entwined with her spine. The parasite entered his body via his mouth, but because of his naturally low body temperature (a one-in-a-trillion genetic mutation), he was not affected.

After the mass suicide, Weber sought to understand the parasites. Finding their nest in the swamp, he studied them. He had a theory that if he allowed them to enter his body, he would produce antibodies that may help others without natural immunity.

Days before the game

The ranger, Schulz, finds Zwieselberg.

Detachment 10 takes over the situation in Zwieselberg and attempts to quarantine the district of Thun. It sets up roadblocks in the neighbouring towns of Amsoldingen and Reutigen.

Day One

Ariel reports via a thermal scan that the soldiers are the only people in the area. This is accurate, as Weber has a low body temperature.

The Parasites attack Zwieselberg.

The soldiers dig a mass grave in the Marshes. This results in Nun being bitten by a bug. The bugs are very early larval forms of the parasite species, which poison potential hosts so that parasites at a latter stage of development can take them more easily.

If the soldiers had dug on the hills, there would have been no risk of infection. (They still would have the opportunity to find and possibly kill Weber later.)

The Parasites also attack Amsoldingen and Reutigen.

Night One

The following Parasite actions happened:
Delta_Cribs -> Sigma_Kez
Sigma_Jen -> Delta_Minoru
Lambda_Fudge -> Sigma_Ted

Incredibly, Lambda_Clark managed to induct Lambda_False into the Cult on the first night.

Day Two

The soldiers kill Weber. If left alive, he would have cured Nun and given a description of what happened in town, before departing. His expertise would have eventually helped the soldiers in Reutigen combat the infection more effectively.

Ted, who was really the Parasite Fudge, was killed. Orange's early instincts were spot on: he also outed Cribs on Day One, but was ignored.

The soldiers sweep the cabin for clues. The clues were given via PM, with instructions to describe them without copy/pasting them. (I expected this to result in more theory-crafting than it actually did. In retrospect, I should have allowed the clues to be copy/pasted.)

The personal diary found by Sat was an easter egg. It read: Im Spiegel, mit unzähligen zappelnden Händen, die sich ausstrecken / Komm, locken Sie jemanden hierher. This translates to: In the mirror, with countless wriggling hands reaching out / Come, lure someone here. This was both a reflection on the researcher's frame of mind as he observed his own parasite-ridden body, and a reference to the lyric Kagami no naka de ugomeki nobashite kuru musuu no te de / Saa dareka o koko e izanai nasai in the theme song of Higurashi. (Unlike the other hints in the game, I obviously didn't really expect anyone to get that...)

Night Two

Ariel starts to get very confused and upset about a question it can't answer with its simulations: if the Parasites are a naturally occurring species, why hasn't this happened before? Humans have inhabited the area since the Bronze Age.

Parasites:
Delta_Minoru -> Delta_Mog
Sigma_Kez -> Gamma_Hexx
Lambda_Nun -> Lambda_Sat

Irene patrolled near Kez as he tore out his own throat, and I thought there was a chance he might make a post about it -- it's weird in an AYA? game to have the Witch Doctor role and have someone you protect still die! But I guess to be fair it would have meant revealing his role.

This was the night Clark recruited Hype.

Day Three

We had the exploration of the two temples on this day. The temple at Bürgli contains the Cleansing Pool, which kills normal parasites and downgrades upgraded ones. Chalchmädere contains a vortex called the Maelstrom - in which the malevolent entity who created the Parasites lives - which converts normal Humans and kills the Cold-Blooded. It also upgrades normal Parasites to Pupae (in a public fashion, as the increased body temperature is detected by Ariel).

If Orange had succeeded with his puzzle, he would have been given a demonstration of how the Cleansing Pool kills parasites. If Denster had failed his puzzle, the Map would not have been revealed. This would have given the Parasites the opportunity to stealthily kill one of the explorers of Chalchmädere (because the terrain would be less familiar).

Mario became Cold-Blooded, which granted him immunity from infection. He could only be killed by the Pupa.

The Event caused Sykes to become a Parasite, and upgraded Mog to a Pupa. Mog couldn't be killed (except by Sniper shot); instead, the Cleansing Pool downgraded him.

The ghosts who screamed out from the vortex were the people Mog had previously inhabited. I tried to foreshadow this a little when Tomous' soul cried out early on in the game.

Night Three

Parasites:
Gamma_Hexx -> Delta_Orange

Sat's attempt to change hosts to Sykes was interrupted by Sykes becoming a Parasite in the Event, which was incredibly bad luck.

Day Four

Qikz became Cold-Blooded.

Documents are rescued from the plane. In secret, Sat manages to sabotage an important document describing the crew's orders. If this document had survived, the soldiers would have been given the option to destroy the road to Amsoldingen.

Also rescued from the plane are Binoculars, which gave Sat the bonus role of Tracker; Night Vision Goggles, which gave Growth the bonus role of Patrol Officer; and a Sniper Rifle, which gave Rik the bonus role of Sniper.

Night Four

Mario is killed by being cast into the Maelstrom by Mog. Secretly, this was 1/3 required to unlock the Imago.

Parasites:
Lambda_Sat -> Gamma_Dan
Sigma_Sykes -> Gamma_Pancake

Dan had already locked in a Patrol near Drum, so the action Delta_Orange -> Gamma_Drum was blocked. This is due to the resolution order of actions outlined in my full rules.

Errkal gained access to Orange's account this night with his Spy ability.

Day Five

(I had a migraine more or less all day, so the writing quality took a sharp downturn...)

Mog is downgraded back into a normal parasite, which means that the Parasites have no way of killing Cold-Blooded without spending an action upgrading someone.

The flight recording outlines the pilot resisting an infected copilot. The original Event showed the pilot was infected. This was supposed to be a hint that the Parasites were jumping from host to host. (I probably didn't emphasise it enough, so I blame myself for this being overlooked.)

Hype was punished. Clark, his Cult Leader, decides to enact the Cult Ritual. He sacrifices Hype to turn himself into a Parasite.

Pancake, who was of course infected and not really Pancake, decided to use his Sniper ability on Iron. Because Sniper is a free and not a night action, it succeeded despite Iron being Acting Commander. (I was worried this may have felt unfair, but it was an intended possibility; it was in the rules from the start, and emphasised in role PMs.)

Night Five

False was intended to be allowed to recruit a new Parasite from Amsoldingen today, which was a result of the road to Amsoldingen being still intact. (This was an Event consequence.) Because he got Clark, I nullified that ability.

Parasites:
Gamma_Pancake -> Delta_Tiarny
Delta_Mog -> Gamma_Drum
Lambda_Clark -> Gamma_Irene
Gamma_Dan -> Delta_Mini

Growth patrolled near Rik, preventing the action Delta_Orange -> Gamma_Rik. Orange was very unlucky to get blocked twice in a row, and it led to his death.

Day Six

Orange was killed, after being stuck in the same body for too long.

Growth sniped Errkal and Rik sniped Edd, making it mathematically possible for the Parasites to win on Night Six.

False got a recruit from Reutigen, which would have been prevented if Weber were still alive. Because of this, Grey became a Parasite.

Parasites:
Delta_Tiarny -> Gamma_Growth
Gamma_Irene -> Lambda_Bob
Delta_Mini -> Delta_Denster
Gamma_Drum -> Sigma_Daz

Though they won on numbers, they elected to launch the flares and win in style.

After the game

The parasites take over the world, naturally...!

He posted too often from his main account and was punished by having his role and gameplan revealed. It was harsh, but that was because revealing that an alt is (or isn't) still tied to a main unravels the core concept of the game and I wanted people to take the rule seriously. If people started low-key letting each other know who their mains are, the illusion the experience relies on would have dissipated very quickly.

Unfortunately, Hype was a Cultist - a bad guy - and the Cult revolved around being a secret conspiracy. This means that revealing the existence of the Cult had a knock-on effect on the Cult Leader, Clark, and by extension the rest of the bad guys. (If the existence of the Cult had already been revealed in-thread things would have been different, but at that point - even though Iron knew about them - it hadn't.)

I brought back the Cult Ritual idea to help Clark find new a role in the game. It was all very ad-hoc and improvised, and involved some out-of-character discussions with both Clark and False. I feel bad about that. On the other hand, I think I balanced the outcome effectively: the bad guys were in a strong position on Night 4 and they remained in a strong position on Night 5. No doubt there will be some debate about that, but on reflection I'm happy with it how it worked out.

From a narrative perspective, I limited the information and exposition given because I wanted the Humans to feel like bad things beyond their comprehension were happening to them. This is the core of Lovecraftian storytelling.

From a gameplay perspective, I was hoping it would lead to theory-crafting. (At one point I even outright stated this as an out-of-character hint in-game!) Unfortunately, much less theory-crafting happened than I expected, so I would say this is one of the respects in which the game failed to achieve its objectives. Ultimately I can't blame anyone for this but myself.

If I could do it differently, I would have probably given more hints and made them a little more obvious.

Things which were planned:

• The full details of every character role.
• All of the Events and their rewards.
• The general plot of the game, and how that plot would be influenced by Events.
• The truth-telling punishment for people who posted too often or too unrepentantly from their mains.

Things which weren't planned:

• The introduction of the two Temples was going to modify the victory conditions to require specific actions from the Pupas and the Cold-Blooded before their side could achieve a victory. I struggled to explain the changes succinctly, and decided last-minute that the new rules were simply too complicated to go into the game.
• The Cult Ritual on Day 5. This was a concept I scrapped as I thought it would be too powerful, but I brought it back when it became clear that the Cult was not going to be able to function as intended.

I started to be a little more lenient towards the Humans in terms of timings and dropping more obvious hints during Day 3, when it became very clear to me as a GM that the Parasites were dominating the game. I stopped making any efforts to this extent after Night 5, when they had essentially already lost.

Well... we've seen two powerful magical entities - one naughty, one nice - do battle via AYA? before...

Yes, it's my head-canon that they were the Day Master and Night Master from Dan's Cannibal House. This makes this entire story a work of Cannibal House fan-fiction. ...But I didn't put that in the text of the actual game because it would have been impossible to take seriously afterwards, ha!

Thought it might be good to archive them for posterity!

I have quite a few.

The entire Parasite team were great. They really engaged with the game's more unique elements and were a pleasure to GM.

From what I hear, Denster, Qikz, and Rik came the closest to solving the game's puzzles, so well done to them. Orange was also a fantastic player and had scarily accurate gut feelings (until he thought too hard about the Test of Heart!).

I also want to give a special shout-out to anyone who had the Patrol Officer role at any point -- I think this is Growth, Dan, and Irene. They were never informed whether they blocked anything or not, but they actually made some amazing plays and really hindered the bad guys at times.

Finally, special thanks to Kez. I messed up his role early in the game - I gave him access to an account as a Spy, and then realised afterwards he had actually been role-blocked, so had to take it back - and mere moments after I had finished apologising his account was taken over by the Parasites. I'm grateful that he saw the funny side of that comedy of errors, and the rest of the game went smoothly by comparison: I resolved afterwards to be much more careful about sticking to my own action resolution order rules, and it definitely helped.

Most of our AYA?s of the last few years have ranged from camp-kind-of-horror to full-on-survival-horror in tone. The few outright comedy games have been one-day affairs like Are You A Cyclone?. I wonder whether the next AYA? should have somewhat lighter themes, like the wonderful Are You A Bluehat? of old.

I used to think they were necessary, but I think I am finally sick of PM chains. If I have anything to say about the next game, everything will be done in-thread, with the exception of sending your actions to the GM. Down with PM chains! The campaign starts here!