ENTITY 10: INFLUENCERS

 

Photo by Ronny Young

Word of mouth is one of the most effective marketing techniques available today. In these difficult times, with consumers losing confidence in the world around them, traditional advertising has become less and less effective. The most powerful and effective messages come from relatable people who speak from a position of trust. That's why any marketing division worth its salt maintains a stable of Influencers. 

Influencers are lab-grown parasitic organisms which excrete eggs that are impossible to detect, except under a microscope. The domestic Coke™ supply [1] is laced with these tiny eggs. Each time you drink from the Coke™ supply, roll a d10. If it comes up as a 1, you have ingested an Influencer. 

When ingested, they lodge in the back of your throat and slowly grow inside your mouth. After 3 months, the Influencer will reach a sufficient size to sever the blood vessels in your tongue, devouring it and attaching itself to the remaining stub in your mouth. During this process, it releases you with a refreshing cocktail of Coke™ flavoured chemicals that numb your jaw and stop you from noticing anything. 

The process takes a few hours and is usually initated while the host is asleep. When you wake, you'll notice nothing except a lingering taste of Coke™ in your mouth. The process is complete. The influencer has full control of your speech.

A fully camoflagued Influencer. Notice the colouration.

The parasite has developed intricate camoflague that make it almost indistinguishable from the human tongue in look and feel. Most of the time, it will act exactly like your normal tongue. It will be as if nothing has changed. But every so often, you may find yourself saying things you didn't mean to say.

Beverage Partners Worldwide sends transmissions to these organisms from their marketing cabal deep under the subway system, updating them daily with new branded messages from their network of business partners. You might find yourself casually mentioning the great taste of Subway™, or the inadvisability of forming a union.

Even at this stage, many hosts still don't realise anything is wrong. Hearing your own voice saying something out of your own mouth is extremely persuasive. Research has shown that your conscious awareness of your own speech only occurs after the words have come from your mouth - not before [2]. You don't always know what you're saying. The majority of hosts are unable to detect that any substitutions have taken place. Slowly, their views change to match the words that come from their mouths.

This customer marketing strategy focuses on retaining current clients, preventing buyers remorse, and soothing the minds of any potentially aggravated or confused consumers. These tactics help to improve customer retention, reduce churn, and boost customer loyalty, brand advocacy, and community participation. Experts estimate that roughly 20% of people in the US have an Influencer.

If you ever attempt to act against Beverage Partners Worldwide or their associates, the parasite will turn on you. It can make you say anything it wants, or stop you from talking entirely. It is also capable of forcing you to ululate at a special frequency that will alert any BPW agents nearby, informing them that you are an aggravated customer who requires special attention. 

An uncamoflagued Influencer.

Footnotes and References

[1] After years of lobbying by Beverage Partners Worldwide, the government recently initiated a program to replace all drinkable water in the country with the refreshing taste of Coca Cola™. The domestic water supply is now fully controlled by BPW, which supplies families across the country with 29.4 billion gallons of delicious Coke™ every day. Water can be purchased in bottled form for special occasions (also supplied by Beverage Partners Worldwide).

[2] Lind, A., Hall, L., Breidegard, B., Balkenius, C., & Johansson, P. (2014). Speakers’ acceptance of real-time speech exchange indicates that we use auditory feedback to specify the meaning of what we say. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1198–1205. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614529797

Using Influencers in Play

This is another monster that toys with player agency in a strong way. As usual, make sure everyone at your table is comfortable with this kind of thing before you use it. If in doubt, I recommend you only use influencers on NPC's and never actually have a PC infected with one. 

NPC's may say things without realising it, or without meaning to. As the party goes through a town, they find everyone in town seems to say the same things. 

"Nice time to go to the water," they say. "So hot today!" "Boy, that water sure looks beautiful." "Sure would be great to dive into that cold, blue water. It's so crisp." "Why, I could just live in that water." "So cold. So blue. So beautiful." 

If you ask the NPC's for more details about what they've said, they don't even remember saying it. If anyone enters the water, they will quickly become infected.

Here are some examples of things you could use Influencers for:

1. Influencers sneak out words to exchange information in code. They are manipulating people in order to destabilise the local community and organise a coup.
2. The host talks loudly in their sleep, confessing to crimes they did not commit. 
3. A man is executed. As he falls from the rope, an Influencer crawls from his mouth. The locals kill it, but the community erupts into a fever of paranoia. A witch hunt begins. No-one knows who to trust. No-one will open their mouth.
4. Everyone in town seems to have the same opinions. The same patterns of speech. The same jokes. At night, the influencers crawl out to commune in a secret place underground. They are planning something.
5. The PC's have frequent phone contact with some important NPC's. They ring the PC's with messages, helpful notes, missions, etc. Over time, these NPC's are corrupted by Influencers with their own agenda.
6. The PC's have some secret or information they need to convey. Whenever they try to speak the secret, their words come out garbled. They slowly realise they have been infected. 
7. A host develops a speech impediment. Unknown to them, this is actually a method for the influencer to communicate secret information to hostile entities whenever they speak. The Influencer uses this to give away the host's secrets.
8. The Influencer interferes with the host's spellcasting in subtle ways by very slightly altering the magic words. The spells will still mostly work as normal, but may have unintended or secret side-effects that work towards the influencer's goals. 
9. The Influencer secretly interferes with charisma checks. The host gets a secret bonus when they're doing things it wants, and a secret penalty when they're doing things it doesn't want. 
10. The Influencer ruins stealth checks by forcing the host to cough, sneeze or gasp loudly when they're trying to be stealthy (and do something it doesn't want them to do). 

Using influencers against PC's

If a PC is infected, they wake up feeling tired, with a strong taste of Coke™ in their mouth. (The parasite excretes it to cover up the tang of blood as the tongue is devoured). Their jaw may feel slightly numb. Their tongue (if they examine it) will seem grey and unhealthy, but otherwise normal. An expert will be able to tell what's happened, and the parasite will reveal itself if it is harmed. If they try to extract the parasite, it will dig in and release a coded signal, attracting any nearby influencers or BPW agents to activate and defend it. 

Once the parasite has dug in, you'll need surgical equipment and knowledge to extract it without damaging or even killing the host. The severed stump of the tongue, without the numbing and blood-thickening chemicles excreted by the parasite, will begin to bleed copiously. This can quickly lead to death if not treated by a professional.