(This is a full walkthrough of the May 2020 ARCANA experience. Feel free to click around at will. All links should still be live.)PRE-EXPERIENCEA flyer with the website for Arcana circulates. If participants read the copy of the flyer carefully, they discover the enigmatic phrase PROVIDENCE AWAITS.Once they read the rules, participants are directed to the Instagram of a stranger -- a fun-loving young artist named JADE. Her bio announces that she’s back online for the first time in three years. We see her apartment - artsy knick-knacks scattered here and there. Participants may or may not figure out that some of these images contain clues.Jade shares that she’s going through some major life changes. “ROBIN is gone.” After pouring her heart out, Jade commits to make art with her feelings.
WEEK 1Jade wakes up and tells the participants she’s had a terrible nightmare in which she was being stalked by a shade with a long, unusual shadow casting from it. She makes a piece of art that illustrates what the nightmare felt like and asks the participants to DM what it could possibly mean. When participants investigate the shadow close up, staring from an unusual perspective, they discover the word FOX. Jade doesn’t know what that means, but feels the word foreshadows something.Over the rest of the week, Jade complains about her feelings. She flirts with the participants and tells stories about her past with Robin. She makes two more pieces of art based on nightmares. The images in the two art pieces reveal the words FATE and DEATH contained within. When the participants share the words with Jade, she’s unnerved and confused but grateful.She also begins to receive threatening messages from a strange account called @veryslyuno. When participants search his account it’s empty, almost a ghost account.The participants urge Jade to assemble a baby doll they’ve seen scattered in pieces throughout the apartment; when she does, the word MARION is revealed on the doll’s body.
When participants finally start Googling FOX, FATE, DEATH and MARION it takes them to a real-life Los Angeles horror-story: The Murder of Marion Parker. Participants start to research this 1927 murder on their own and bring the grisly facts to a terrified Jade.Late in the week, Jade posts a fragmented poem about her relationship with Robin. When participants place the fragments back together, a moody and dark poem about loneliness is revealed. Another layer hides deeper within the poem, as each fragment also contains an usual mark, item, or symbol that connects back to one of Jade’s previous art pieces. After using the elements on each scrap to uncover a few letters, participants are left with TRAPPED IN ATTIC. When they share the phrase to Jade, she is furious and rages at them, then apologizes. Late that night, a figure appears in Jade’s doorway. The game goes dark for a few days. The week’s recap contains another odd, hidden message: AMOS PRIOR.
WEEK 2Jade messages the participants early in the morning with a gruesome discovery: the doll she reassembled has a filthy rag stuffed in its chest with a mess of obscured letters on it. Participants help Jade decipher the writing to reveal BELLEVUE ARMS. After a nightmare, she makes a new art piece that participants uncover the word BEDLAM in. Jade is overwhelmed with messages about the murder of Marion Parker and asks the participants “Which article should I read?”The participants dig around online and come up with a seemingly innocuous article from a public TV website in 2017: “Bedlam at Bellevue Arms.” When they give the article to Jade, she is shocked because she knows the author of the article, real-life LA Historian HADLEY MEARES. Jade gives the participants an in-game email for the real-life person who is somehow a character in the experience, and asks them to contact Hadley without revealing Jade’s involvement. They email her and ask for information about the Marion Parker murder.
The response from in-game Hadley is curt but professional: she tells them she gave up on researching the Marion Parker/Hickman murder, but would trade them for any information about folk art of the time. She also links them to an unpublished podcast recording that might be of help. The audio was never released, she says, because it glitched and never worked properly...Participants discover that the podcast recording, which is about Hickman’s trial and the demonic force he claimed forced him to kill -- a presence he called PROVIDENCE -- has an audio glitch that, upon analysis, is a distorted voice saying “JADE CAGE.” And if participants dig even deeper, turning the podcast into a spectrogram, a visual image showing the frequencies in the audio, they find a disturbing image: an electric chair with the words LITTLE ROCK 9 30 21.That night, Jade gets a warning on her security system -- someone is on her front porch. When she reviews the footage, there is no one there, but she hears an eerie humming. In the morning, prompted by the participants telling her the message “Jade cage,” she looks in a small decorative caged plant on her porch and finds a CD.The CD contains an eerie song -- a recording of the murder ballad, “Little Marion Parker.” Jade uploads it so participants can listen and they discover disturbing lyrics that weren’t part of the original song. Using the new verses, participants find the phrase, MARKED WITH SHADE. Generating a spectrogram of the song also reveals an ominous image of a man named AMOS RATLIFF, a vicious murderer from Arkansas condemned to die by electric chair on September 30, 1921. Participants suspect that the Arkansas connection may somehow overlap with Hickman since he was also born in Arkansas.Jade doesn’t understand what “marked with shade” means, but it gets quite a response from Hadley Meares. She promises to dig into her archives and come back with more on murderer William Edward Hickman.Meanwhile, back in the house, Jade attempts to cheer herself up by asking the participants to participate in an online dance party. Those who participate get their videos marked with cryptic letters and numbers that reveal the words FEED RAGE.
The lighthearted distraction of the dance party falls apart when Jade receives a rapid-fire series of threats from the @veryslyuno account. That night, and over the next few days, he starts Instagramming stalkerish photos of Jade from outside, through the window, and eventually, inside her house. She is panicked and feels powerless to stop him.Jade makes another art piece for the players that subconsciously hides the words SCRATCH YOU OUT OF MY SKIN. And another ripped-up poem, that when put back together, reveals the outline of a pair of BLOODY SHEARS. Both times, when these are shared with Jade in DMs, she becomes extremely upset with the participants, nearly breaking down.Hadley sends the players Hickman’s autopsy from 1928. His insides, she notes, were marked with something. The participants study the notes from the medical examiner and find the phrase HANGED MAN had been scratched inside his chest. And, meanwhile, the messages in the stalker’s account reveals SEVEN OF SWORDS. The participants remember a tarot deck that appeared in an early photo of the attic and urge Jade to go draw those cards. 
Later that night, Jade receives another alert from her front door camera; though she cannot see it, the participants see the creature that has been stalking her lurking just outside. And Jade opens the door -- letting whatever it was into the house.Jade goes dark for a few days. The recap contains the hidden phrase MISSING PEARL.
WEEK 3Jade reappears in the attic with a strange, new attitude. She tells the players she’s been sleepwalking at night and begs them to protect her from the evil presence she cannot escape. A business card appears in the attic hawking the website for a DEMONOLOGIST. The participants dig through Jade’s sleepwalking videos and find her unusual behavior gives rise to strange words that unlock videos on the Demonologist’s website. In a series of choppy instructional videos, a mysterious, quirky man teaches viewers how to draw a series of connected SIGILS purported to protect against dark entities from different mythologies; after constructing the signs, participants convey them to Jade who feels comforted by them.
Meanwhile, generating a spectrogram from the sleepwalking videos reveals an ominous image of a woman named PEARL BRYAN who was brutally murdered by two men in Kentucky in 1896, the year the previous murderer, Amos Ratliff was born. The participants suspect a connection between all the murderers and begin to theorize on the movement of the dark force Hickman called Providence.Jade begins to fall apart in the attic. Her emotions see-saw wildly. It becomes harder and harder for the participants to reach out to her.Each night, Jade draws from a tarot deck to help speculate about her past, present and future, cryptic Latin words etched on the back of the cards. Prompted by the symbolism and meaning of the Tarot cards, Jade dredges up old memories and confesses what she has been hiding from the participants: Robin didn’t decide to move away -- she fled from Jade’s controlling, obsessive nature. The night Robin tried to get away, Jade stabbed her with scissors and trapped her in the attic until she escaped. Wracked with guilt and anger, Jade decides to hate Robin for leaving her.Players help Jade translate the Latin on the back of the cards and learn they must burn them and use the ashes to construct the protective sigil from the Demonologist’s videos. They also are surprised to discover a mysterious connection between the sigils and the Latin which yields a mysterious Latin word meaning I BESEECH.
As Jade prepares the protective sigil, she shares a letter from Robin that she has ripped up. When participants put it back together, they discover secret symbols that call back to previous images, artwork, and posts from Jade, revealing the message JADE IS THE VESSEL...But the participants discover it too late, for Jade has drawn sigil and spoken the arcane word... SOMETHING TAKES HOLD OF HER.The Demonologist’s full website comes online, revealing a way to contact him. A final video also appears, revealing that the editing in the earlier videos was manipulative and obscuring the fact he was warning them against drawing the sigil. The participants have unwittingly helped Providence possess Jade.Hearing Jade’s in trouble, Hadley Meares investigates the house. Jade, feral and demonic, lunges after her. A video from Jade pops up, threatening Robin. “I’m coming for you, Gray Baby Bird.” Jade starts following one person on instagram: @Graybabybird. One look at the Instagram reveals that not only is Robin alive, but she is Jade’s TWIN.A possessed Jade slinks into the shadows of the attic, going dark.
WEEK 4A distorted reflection of Jade’s Instagram feed, covered with symbols, scratches, and terrifying marks, suddenly appears. The participants are contacted by Hadley Meares and Gareth Fitzpatrick the Demonologist, responding to emails they received over the weekend. And Jade’s twin sister, Robin, finally makes contact.
The players start working on three fronts: With Gareth, they identify the demons that have united to make up Providence, and digging into their specific mythologies, discover methods to lay bare the demons’ weaknesses, cleverly hidden within Jade’s distorted Instagram feed.With Hadley, the participants play detective, digging through true crime artifacts associated with the three murderers who played host to Providence, and uncovering objects, or totems, that represent each of their obsessions. These are “totems” that must be destroyed to lessen Providence’s hold.In Robin’s feed, they hear stories of the twins’ childhood and try to unravel the psychological trauma that drove them apart; the loss of a mother, a mean drunk father, and a dark bond. Hidden in emotional memories are the locations of the killers’ totems within the house.
Combining what they’ve discovered with Hadley, Gareth, and Robin, the participants form a plan on how to stop Providence. But they have a decision to make... Will they BANISH the demon, setting Jade free, but leaving Providence in the world to seek other vulnerable vessels? Or will they BIND it to Jade, dooming her to be a cage for the demonic host, but in turn, keeping the world safe from its nightmarish power? The participants film remote ceremonies from their homes, as well as making “truth wreaths” that they photograph on their own front doors and send to Gareth. The votes are counted to decide the outcome.
Late that night, Robin posts a photo of Hickman’s unmarked grave and confesses that it was she who summoned the demon weeks ago as she fled the house. In an angry attempt to cut ties with Jade, She accidentally woke Providence, slumbering, powerless, deep in Hickman’s dead body. This is all her fault. 
After some last-minute preparations, including a live Zoom conference between Gareth and Hadley where they plan and answer participant’s questions, Gareth heads to Jade’s house. He counts the votes live and sees that the players have chosen BANISHMENT. He enters the house, collects the totems, and does battle with Jade, ultimately freeing her with Robin’s last-second help. 
In the morning, Robin and Jade take the first steps towards mending their relationship. And, Jade thanks the participants for being her friends. She tells them she’ll be okay on her own, and says goodbye, walking outside for the first time in a month... 
Later that night, participants receive a threatening “knock knock” from the @veryslyuno account. It posts a film with all of their doors -- the ones they shared with the game-makers. The demon has their location. They’ve made themselves vulnerable. He’s right outside...