Beguiled by the open invitation and promise of free refreshments, 22 of you drop what you’re doing at various parts of the world and make for Thrash Island in the Canadian Arctic.

Some of you are wealthy enough to travel by airship or aeroplane, while others take sled dogs, or else take normal ships as far as they will go and then set out across the ice.

The sun wobbles up and down beyond the horizon as you make your way across vast ice packs and barren, gravel-strewn islands. A couple of you get dragged hundreds of miles by wendigos. This party better be worth it.

At last, you all arrive at Thrash Island. It’s the height of summer, which means most of the snow has melted and life is doing what it can with the rocks.

A few hundred yards inland, you come to a vaguely gothic structure made of weathered wood and rusting steel. There is a wrought-iron fence that separates its gravel yard from the rest of the gravel island. A single limp balloon flaps listlessly in the cold air.

Suddenly, the double doors are thrown open by white-gloved servants, and a man strides out to meet you. He’s wearing two-thirds of a three-piece suit and a rather fancy mask.

“Is this a masked ball?” someone asks. None of you were told it was.

“Oh no,” says the man. “This is for me alone, as you shall see.” He coughs formally into his fist. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lord Edwin Thrash, doctor of medicine, and I am most humbled by this fine turnout.”

You greet him with a chorus of “Charmed” and “Sup.”

“Please, my new friends, no need to be so formal. Do come in and rest by the fire. I shall have my people make you hot toddies.”

The inside of the building is oddly proportioned, with narrow hallways and high ceilings. It seems Dr. Thrash tried to drag the 20th century up here to the arctic, with electric lights awkwardly strung from a ceiling of unfinished boards. The fireplace is made of local stone and has a roaring fire of driftwood. The light plays off unsettling framed woodcuts of the human anatomy.

“Perhaps you are wondering,” the doctor says, as you all get comfortable with your drinks, “why I would want to hold a party in such a remote location. But the real question” – and here he leans forward conspiratorially, the metallic elements of the mask glinting in the firelight – “is why you wouldn’t hold a party here! Haha! For surely, my friends, surely you see our glorious conundrum.”

Some of you think your drinks taste funny, but you’re too engrossed in this weird speech to pay that any mind.

“It is the year of our lord Nineteen Hundred and Thirty One! Man has conquered the world he was born in, from the equator to the poles. We must reach beyond, for what comes next. We will do that together, my friends.”

Dr. Thrash stands up and surveys the room.

“I was in the war, as I imagine a number of you were. I learned what makes a man, when I was out there in the trenches. I came to know all the weak spots, all the strong sinews, all the organs that power the whole. You may have read distressing articles about me in the news-papers, alluding to ‘unprofessional contact’ and nonsense like that. But I tell you that, in the process of taking men apart to build them anew, I came to understand the body as a sum of its parts.”

He coughs.

“So, um, yes. I suppose I should tell you that, on occasion, I have lured people up here to hunt them for sport. I should also like to add that they were always told the circumstances before the hunt, and allowed every chance to defend themselves and turn the table upon me. None did, of course, but they tried.”

“Wow,” says somebody who hasn’t connected the dots yet. “Must’ve been dreadful for those poor bastards.”

“Tonight,” continues the doctor, “we enter the next phase of my experiment. Man is an unimpressively dangerous game. No, my friends, the most dangerous game… is werewolves.”

He pauses, but nobody gets it, and he sighs into the mask.

“And that is why, just now, five of you have been given the serum that turns you into werewolves.” You all drop your cups in horror, which seems to gratify him a bit. “I have improved it somewhat, so that you will become wolves every night, instead of just when the moon is full. That took ages of selective breeding on father’s estate, by the way.”

Some of you are rising from your seats, but he tosses a bucket of sand over the fire and saunters over to a large lever on the wall without a care in the world.

“It’s getting dark out,” he says. “Or at least as dark as it gets. The sun goes down for a little while. And THAT is when the killing begins. And I will be right there among you, though you do not know my face.”

He cackles and throws the switch. The room is plunged into darkness. A second later, the lights come back.

“Also I’m really good at doing voices and I have a very large costume collection,” he adds, hand still on the switch. “Trust no one.”

And the lights go out again. There is much fumbling and confusion, and then somebody gets the lights back on. You stand around in confusion. There is one more of you than there was before.

After a strained, awkward moment, the butler, Wrothlesby, comes in and shoos you all back out onto the tundra, then shuts the door behind you.

“We were promised booze!” someone shouts. The door opens, a keg is shoved out, and then the door closes again. It is August 9, 1931, and you are stranded among killers on an arctic isle with whatever you are wearing and a keg of beer.

Twilight will be Sunday, October 18 at 9 p.m. EST

---

[spoiler title=PLAYERS]

PLAYERS

April LKD / Snowcone seller
Cop on the Edge-ish / Bob and Doug McKenzie
DW / Warrior of Darkness
Emmelemm / Kitty Witless
Goat / Kehaar the seagull
InnDEEEEED / Wayne Campbell
Josephus Brown / THE FARM
Lamb Dance / Anksybay the Piggy Bank
Lindsay / Mario
Louie Blue / Ernest Shackleton
Mayelbridwen / Tidal Bore
Milkproofrobot / Hezekiah Purcell
Mr. I’m My Own Grandfather / Trevor Belmont
Narrowstrife / Victor Columbia Edison
Otakunomike / Renowned travel writer Michael
Owen1120 / Pirate Captain
Ralph / Shania Twain
Raven and Rose / Definitely not a bear
Sagittariuskim / Dorothy Baker
Sic Humor / Man who thinks he’s looking for love while actually being hunted for sport, formerly man who thinks he’s being hunted for sport while looking for love
Sister Jude the Obscure / Joan Crawford
Spookyfriend / Victor Frankenstein
The Hayes Code / Willow

BACKUPS
Side Character
Hohopossum
Dicentra
[/spoiler]

[spoiler title=ROLES]
TOWN
13 Party-goers (Vanilla Town)
1 Party Sleuth (Investigator)
2 Socialites (Masons, get a one-shot kill)

SCUM
5 Werewolves
1 Werewolf roleblocker
1 Lord Edwin Thrash, M.D. (Serial Killer)

Vanilla town message: Welcome to Thrash Island, where death stalks you at every turn and drinks are free ! You are a PARY-GOER (Vanilla Town), and your win condition is to escape with your life, and also have a great time. Your only power is your vote.[/spoiler]

[spoiler title=RULES]

Win conditions:
The wolves win when they are equal to the number of town-aligned players left (if the SK is dead), or outnumber the non-wolf players (even if the SK is still alive).
Town wins when all the wolves and the serial killer are defeated.
The serial killer wins when it comes down to just them and one other person.
A three-way standoff between the last town, last wolf and SK will result in a special ending.

Night actions:
There isn’t a hard order that night actions occur in. This is to allow as many of them to go through as possible. Roleblocks will always take precedent over the actions of the targeted player, however.
Investigator: All town forces and the SK come back HUMAN, all wolves come back, you guessed it, WOLF.

Voting:
You have the option to vote “No Kill” (or words to that effect). If that option prevails, no one dies at the end of the day.
A majority vote for one player (or No Kill) will end the day early.
A tied vote at twilight will result in no one dying.
There are no secret powers or win conditions in this game. Any changes I have to make to the mechanics will be announced publicly.
If you maintain a game-related outside resource (like a spreadsheet or an in-character Tumblr), stop updating it after you’re dead.
No editing posts.
No quoting or screencapping from your QTs.
If you have any other questions about rules, please ask in QT, and I will answer publicly here.
[/spoiler]