pb universe

I hope @playchoices gets to see this. I appreciate your art!

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‘Ansal (or Ansel, however you spell his name) is hot. I’m sorry, but he’s hot.’

History of The Power

     The Power is an ancient force living in the woods and waters that encompass Klamath County, Oregon which includes the neighboring towns of Westchester and Pine Springs.

     The Power pre-dates written records, and exists in local legends as “a forest spirit” [Ava]. It is implied by Connor and stated by Goddard that the residents of Westchester acknowledge this entity yet they refuse to speak of it. It is later shown as a prominent theme in ILB that the residents of Pine Springs are aware as well of a dark entity in their seemingly perfect little town.

What is the cult that is tied to The Power?

     The Power is some sort of deity that requires a clergy to worship it. Cora says she is part of a group that is later revealed by Goddard to be The Arcane Society of Westchester. As watchers of the woods, they guarded The Power and kept it secret. In turn, it granted them a fraction of its supernatural abilities, but only if they follow the rules.

     Here’s the important part: The Power’s true strength comes from the connection it has with its followers. Both sides are bound by the rules that they set [Cora].

     Once a binding spell is casted by the cult to The Power, their connection is thenceforth severed. The Power grows weak and cannot physically leave the boundaries that the cult had set.

     (My theory: Once a new monster replaces the old one, the connection between the old monster and his cult is lost and the new monster must find his own cult to connect with.)

The Arcane Society of Westchester

     The first version of The Power that we explicitly know of is the one that Cora Pritchard and The Arcane Society of Westchester worshipped in a house in the middle of the woods. We do not know for certain if this version was once a human being too like Goddard or Jane, but we do know that there had been multiple instances in the past when a person became the monster. Cora said, “We told him what would happen. He saw the shadows wandering the woods at night: leftovers from other greedy idiots.”

Redfield, the monster beginning on October 31, 1871

     The first monster we come to know of is someone called “Goddard E. Filleus”, which is a pen name and an anagram for “Douglas Redfield.” He moved to Westchester for the sole purpose of investigating the dark entity after he received from an unknown sender a package containing a photo of the trees, a silhouette of The Power, and a caption that says “It lives in the woods.” Within a month of arriving in Westchester on September 1871, Goddard succeeded in joining the cult, becoming the 14th member of The Arcane Society of Westchester. Whether due to a greed for power or a desperation to prove to the world that he wasn’t wrong about the existence of the supernatural, Redfield attempted to hog and got consumed by The Power during the ritual that they performed on All Hallows Eve of 1871.

     Multiple members of the cult were killed on that night. 9 days later, the few who survived faced trial for witchcraft.

     (My theory: It is noted that during the trial, The Power showed himself in court. It should not have been possible for Redfield to have that reach yet because being the new Power for only 9 days, he didn’t have his own set of cult members to draw power from yet. Therefore, I theorize that the cult members who survived the massacre desperately sought a connection with The Power again to save them from the witchcraft trial, or else they will face being hanged.)

The Massacre of 1976, and the author of the journal in It Lives Beneath

     After the trial, Cora and the few survivors continued as a cult for 100 more years. Within this timeline, the author of the journal in ILB drove his/her Gremlin (a vehicle that was produced in the 1970’s) and moved to a cabin near the river in Pine Springs. This person observed that both the waters and the woods seemed to be governed by some ominous yet friendly force, which appeared to have given him/her powers. The author was eventually compelled by The Power to go to the old ruins in Westchester. He/she saw Redfield, took off, lost consciousness, and met Cora. We are yet to discover if the author eventually ended up becoming a part of the cult.

     On August 22, 1976, there were reports of a forest massacre or ritualistic mass suicide in Westchester involving another 14 young men and women. ILITW MC discovers in the lore documents “two mass murders in Westchester, in the same woods, within 100 years of one another.” The first one clearly pertains to the incident in 1871 that turned Goddard into the monster. The second one in 1976 may possibly have involved the author of the journal.

     Something went wrong with the cult again which led to the second massacre. Cora narrated that she and the few survivors eventually exploited the connection they had with The Power to bind Redfield, who burned Cora’s face in the process. Cora hid from him thenceforth and survived for 146 years since Redfield became the monster and later died in 2017 during the events of ILITW.

Jane, the monster beginning on November 3, 2007

     Redfield has been sleeping quiet for 31 years since Cora and the surviving members of The Arcane Society bound him. On Novmber 3, 2017, when Jane and ILITW MC were little, they came across the ruins of the old house in the woods, crossed the boundary, and therefore forfeited the binding spell of the cult. Redfield was freed and connected to a new “cult”: ILITW MC and her friends who came to play with him. Now bound by a new set of rules, Redfield either took the chance to free himself or accidentally killed Jane who then took his place.

     Jane then becomes the new Power but she doesn’t have a cult with a connection to her, so she sleeps for 10 years. When Dan returns to the old ruins in September of 2017 to confront his trauma, he resets the connection and becomes the new and sole member of the cult, until the rest of his friends come to rescue him in the woods.

     With a new connection to more people, Jane becomes more powerful and is able to extend her reach to Westchester High. She attempts to please her followers, whom she sees as her friends, by offering them macabre gifts and abilities. The ILITW gang attempts to bind Jane but fails because they do not play by the rules that they unknowingly set when they were little. The gang confronts Jane in the end, and a third mass killing happens if you do not gain enough nerve points for your friends.

     Sometime in September 2017, either ILITW MC or Noah takes Jane’s place and becomes the new monster.

3 years later: 2020 and the cult in Pine Springs

Arthur has been living in Pine Springs (and has been trying to pay off the mortgage in his house) for at least 30 years. It can be assumed that his daughter, ILB MC’s mom, lived with him in that house containing weird totems similar to the ones in Cora’s house and a locked sarcophagus with a man’s corpse. The sarcophagus is noticeably inscribed with the same rune which Jane (The Power) used to animate the dirt monster that posed as Dan and attacked ILITW MC in her room. The dirt monster or golem, according to Cora, is called a “stone horror” which can wear the face of a person but is actually a clumsy puppet made to look alive by The Power or a member of the cult. All evidences point to the Ned Mallory in Chapter 3 being a stone horror animated by Chief Abraham Kelly, who may be a member of the cult that killed Ned.

     In ILITW, we discover that when the stone horror’s disguise is unmasked, it turns into a giant golem which can be defeated by cracking the rune stone in its chest. It is also worth noting that Goddard mentioned in his letters seeing “13 hooded figures genuflecting before some golem beast of dirt and stone.”

     Based on these evidences, we can safely theorize that the cult in Pine Springs is associated to the one in Westchester. The author of the journal also observed that there seems to be one Power encompassing the water and the woods. PB also mentioned in their blog that The Power in ILB is the same one in ILITW.

     MC’s mom knew about the cult and was later murdered by them. Other possible members of the cult are Astrid because she lied about Ned’s basement, and Arthur because he houses the sarcophagus and repeatedly warns MC not to mess with the unknown forces in Pine Springs.

     It is also worth noting that Tom, coming from Westchester, knows something about the happenings in Pine Springs. In three separate occasions, Tom claimed to have been busy doing something at night. On the night Kyle died, Tom refused to attend the party. On the night Ned was murdered, Tom got nervous when asked about his whereabouts, claiming he was playing videogames. On the night MC got attacked by a zombie bear, Tom bailed and said something came up. It is important to remember that at the end of ILITW, if Ava survives, Tom has a conversation with Ava about researching The Power because it will only be a matter of time before it wakes up again. Ava even says something about “a man born in 1912” who could potentially be the author of the journal.

Drownings in Pine Springs

     Danni was able to take a picture of the cult worshipping the same creature in the lake that drowned Kyle. According to Ned Mallory, the drownings date back over 20 years and has been happening more frequently of late. Deirdre, Ned’s wife, was the third person to disappear in 2018 and Kyle was the second person this month (2020).

     In ILITW, a doctor took note of the pattern of an epidemic in Westchester which is characterized by an influx of coma patients, closely followed by the death of one or more people, and then a period of quiet. Cora revealed that when The Power grows too strong just as Jane did, it tends to feed on the life force of human beings who could fall into a coma or eventually die.

     It is my theory that the drownings in Pine Springs are caused by The Power feeding on people, or the cult members using their powers to mind control those people and offer them as a sacrifice to The Power. Danni mentions that a lot of rich and powerful people living in Pine Springs will benefit from hiding the truth about the drownings. These people could be Chief Police Officer Kelly, real estate owner Astrid, and her corporate lawyer husband Vincent.

     The water level in the lake was lowered 15 years ago to create more mansions in the Lakefront Neighborhood. I assume that the cult members, who are also the powerful people in Pine Springs, are offering human sacrifices to appease The Power that guards the lake.

     Perhaps the author of the journal entry lived in the same house that ILB MC is living in now, and perhaps it is his/her corpse that is locked away in the sarcophagus. Some theories in the Choices wiki infer that the author ended up becoming The Power who got angry at the real estate company for trying to acquire his property and draining the lake, and he/she now demands human sacrifices to appease him/her. But if this is the case, it is unclear why Cora still referred to The Power as “Redfield” after he is replaced with a person whom she knew, as narrated by the author in Chapter 4.

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ILITW entities have ember eyes:

ILB entities have blue eyes:

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Latin inscription on the bracelet:

Timere ecce omnes volunt veritatem tenere clavem otestatis

“See to fearing all those who wish for the truth, for they hold the key to the power.”

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Binding spell by Cora:

Power of the ancient trees, glorious song of all that grows

by right of our covenant, we summon thee

come before us, come before us

Power of the earth and stone, furious wind and rushing creek

by right of our covenant, we bid thee listen

heed our words, heed our words

Power of flame and shadows, keeper of darkest secrets

By the right of our covenant, we bind thee!

Trouble us no more! Trouble us no more!

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