Click here for the Book Two logo.
There's a saying in Wayhaven that if you don't know what's going on, you just have to ask the person next to you.
The Wayhaven Chronicles is a Interactive Fiction game written by Mishka Jenkins and hosted by Choice of Games' user submitted label Hosted Games.
You play as a newly-promoted detective in the small town of Wayhaven, whose first case turns out to be a lot stranger than expected, and introduces them to a larger, more supernatural world.
The first book of the series is available here
. The second book can be found here. The third book can be found here.
The Wayhaven Chronicles contains examples of:
In General
- Alien Among Us: Many supernaturals (including F) originally came to our world from the Echo World, and then became trapped here.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: A detective romancing M, of all gender combinations.
- The Alleged Car: The detective's car is kind of a junker.
- And I Must Scream: The fate of supernaturals who don't follow the Agency's treaty.
- Blessed with Suck:
- Vampires have heightened senses of taste, touch, hearing, and vision, including being able to see in the dark. However, this means they are also more susceptible to extreme temperatures, feel pain more strongly, and can become overstimulated, and have to learn to dampen these abilities somewhat. For example, in Book One M faces immense discomfort at the hospital, and if the detective pulls the fire alarm on the thralls, the loud noise is painful to the vampires, and in Book Two M, again, faces extreme discomfort when at the carnival due to the extraordinary amount of lights and sound that always comes with a carnival.
- The detective has a mutation in their blood that makes them immune to the influence of the supernatural, such as vampire's pheromones, but makes them a target, as it also means their blood gives the supernatural a power boost.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: All of the potential romances in the game are between a human and a vampire.
- Character Customization: The player can determine the detective's name, gender, and sexuality, as well as various physical descriptors, style of clothing, why they joined the police, and what skills they have.
- Close-Knit Community: Wayhaven is this.There's a saying in Wayhaven that if you don't know what's going on, you just have to ask the person next to you.
- Defrosting the Ice Queen: A’s route is practically the definition of this. Trauma caused them to hide themself and their feelings behind a mask of numb professionalism, but the mask starts cracking as they come to care for the detective.
- Dramatic Irony: Quite a bit due to the alternating between focusing on the detective’s first person POV and third person for supporting characters. You learn the team is going behind your back, that Murphy is the killer, and all five are vampires long before the detective actually finds out.
- Everyone Is Bi: All of the members of Unit Bravo (as well as Bobby, who can be the detective's ex) can be interested in the detective regardless of either of their genders.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Vampires unnerve a lot of people, including human agents in the Agency. Many of them would rather work with demons than vampires.
- A is extremely wary of humans and even expresses an explicit dislike of them. They tend to generalize a lot as well, but whether this is pragmatism based on experience or crosses the line into racism is up to interpretation.
- Holy Burns Evil: Averted. Holy items have no effect on vampires.
- Intergenerational Friendship: The detective's friendships with any of the vampires qualify as this, since they are at least decades older than the detective's mother. The friendships between the members of Unit Bravo also qualify in some cases (for example, A and N have nearly 600 years between them).
- Gender Is No Object: Outside of pronouns and a few descriptive lines, the gender of the detective, Unit Bravo, and Bobby is purely flavor.
- Government Agency of Fiction: This is the Agency, though it acts independently of any one government on a global scale.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Due to the slow burn romance, Book One is full of this, especially if the detective is forward with their flirting. It also continues into Book Two, to varying degrees depending on which route.
- Interspecies Friendship: The detective's friendships with the members of Unit Bravo are technically this (though all of them except F were once human).
- Interspecies Romance: The detective's romances with the members of Unit Bravo are technically this (though all of them except F were once human).
- Lead Police Detective: The detective is, obviously, promoted to this at the very beginning of Book One. Unfortunately for them this means taking on some gruesome murder cases in a small town where Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here, meaning they have to prove they're not in over their head.
- Love Triangle: It’s possible for the detective to have one with A and N, which is its own route, separate from either of their individual routes.
- The Masquerade: The Agency hides the supernatural world from ordinary people.
- Mayfly–December Friendship: Regardless of who (if anyone) the detective romances, this applies to their relationships with the members of Unit Bravo in general.
- Mayfly–December Romance: The detective with any of their possible romances. All of the members of Unit Bravo are immortal unless killed, and will almost certainly outlive the detective.
- Meaningful Look: Usually exchanged between A and N.
- No Social Skills:
- The only one on the team with functional social skills is N. A can't work with others outside of their team, and immediately butts heads with the detective, M dislikes people in general and is generally rude to anyone but their teammates, and F just blurts out whatever is on their mind, regardless of whether or not it's appropriate.
- The detective can be played as this, if the player chooses the difficult and impulsive or shy and withdrawn options.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires in Wayhaven differ from the vampires in mainstream media in several ways. For example, crosses and garlic have no effect on them.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: Played straight for the most part with the detective, Unit Bravo, and Bobby, though there are a number of minor (mostly flavor) differences based on what gender they are.
- Relationship Values: The detective's relationships with various characters are tracked by the game, in a couple of different ways:
- In Book One, the members of Unit Bravo have two relationship stats (flirt and friend) which have numerical point values. The flirt stat disappears in Book Two because by that point the detective is already locked into a romance and the friend stat changes from a numerical value to a more amorphous description of the detective's relationship with them (i.e. going from Tense Teammates to Teammates to Close Teammates).
- The detective's relationship with their mother is tracked by a percentage bar, which can both increase and decrease.
- The detective's relationships with the mayor and the police chief are tracked by numerical point values, which can go into the negatives.
- Romance Game: Although it is possible to play the entire game while avoiding romantic interactions, romance is a large focus.
- Shipper on Deck:
- Tina encourages the detective to pursue romance with a member of Unit Bravo throughout the game.
- F also supports the various romances between their teammates and the detective, albeit with lots of teasing.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A detective romancing N, of all gender combinations.
- Static Role, Exchangeable Character:
- In Book One, depending on if the detective goes to the bar with Tina or stays in the office by themself, they will be put on a story path with either Douglas or Bobby, and both fill a similar role in Book Two.
- In Book Two, depending on who the detective talks to about their budding realization of the supernatural, they will be put on a story path with either Tina or Verda, who have similar roles.
- In Book Two, depending on what the detective's highest stat is, they will meet either Tapeesa or Vineo while they're at the Agency facility.
- Statuesque Stunner: All of the female Unit Bravo members other than Farah qualify; Nat is 6'0", Ava is 5'8", and Morgan is 5'7".
- Story Branching:
- Partway through Book One, Tina tries to convince the detective to go out to a bar to celebrate with her. Depending on whether the detective agrees to go with her or refuses and stays in the office, they'll be put on one of two branching paths that continue into later books. If the detective goes to the bar, they'll end up saving Douglas from Murphy's thralls, which causes him to develop a massive crush and case of hero worship for them, and they'll end up interacting with him more in later books. If the detective stays in the office, they'll be visited by Bobby, who bugs their office, and they'll end up interacting with them more in later books.
- Partway through Book Two, the detective has the choice of seeking out either Tina or Verda in the police station. Depending on who the detective talks to, they will have the choice of encouraging or discouraging their budding realization about the supernatural, and will end up interacting with them more later on.
- Super-Strength: All vampires have enhanced strength, but A takes this to an extreme.
- Vegetarian Vampire: Averted. The vampires must be sustained on blood to survive. They technically won't actually die, but they will fall into a comatose state, assuming they have the self-control to not go into a feeding frenzy.
- Weakened by the Light: Played with. Vampires are weaker during the day, but still strong enough to protect themselves.
- Your Vampires Suck: Unit Bravo’s opinion on how vampires are depicted in modern media. There’s an entire discussion on this in Book One.
Book One
- Almost Kiss: Pretty frequently, as this is a slow-burn romance. Most notably in the detective's room before the attack on the apartment, their chosen RO almost kisses them before they're interrupted.
- Alone with the Psycho: The detective goes to the hospital for updates on the blood samples Verda sent, and who is there but Dr. Ethan Murphy.
- Big Bad: Ethan Murphy, a vampire searching for humans with a particular blood mutation that gives the individual immunity to supernatural mind-altering abilities and a power boost to supernaturals that consume it.
- Damselin Distress: The detective at the end of book 1. It’s possible to escape the bonds, but it still requires the whole team to take down Murphy.
- Dramatic Irony: Because of shifting viewpoints, readers are aware from very early on that both Unit Bravo and the killer are vampires, but the detective is not.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Sort of. The detective doesn't forget their first meeting with Unit Bravo, they just don't realize that they were the strangers at the warehouse. F gleefully reminds them.
- Locked Out of the Loop: The detective is given very little information. While they don't know anything about the killer other than that he has killed two people in Wayhaven, the Agency knows exactly who the killer is, including having his photo. It's possible for the detective to express their feelings on this, ranging from understanding, to frustrated, to furious.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Garret Hayes is unknown to readers beyond his apparent importance to other characters. However, his death ups the stakes—the detective now has two murders to solve, and one isn't just a stranger to town.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: The detective, by Murphy, in Book One.
- Vampire Bites Suck: If Murphy is able to bite the detective either on the neck or the wrist during the final battle, he's described as tearing into their flesh, and it leaves faintly visible scars even in the second book. They end up with emotional and physical scars afterward.
- You Must Be Cold: On the patrol, if you choose to run into A, they will suddenly do this. Of course, even though it is cold, that's not actually why—they're actually using their coat to cover your scent with theirs, because they can tell Murphy's nearby.
Book Two
- Amusement Park: A carnival has mysteriously arrived in town.
- Artistic License – History: Downplayed, but A is described as wearing "dented but shining armor" in their mirror flashback, implying they're wearing plate armor. However, as an 11th century Anglo-Norman knight, they would more likely be wearing a quilted tunic under a chain mail coat (or hauberk)—plate armor wasn't worn by Anglo-Normans until almost 200 years later.
- The Fair Folk: They turn out to be running the carnival. They're a bit less capricious than other examples, and with the detective's help can find a permanent home at Wayhaven.
- Fish out of Water: Tapeesa works for the Agency, but is unfamiliar with some aspects of the human world, as seen in her discussion with the detective about chocolate.
- Fur Against Fang: We finally meet Unit Alpha in this book and they all turn out to be werewolves... and their team is ranked at the top, beating out Team Bravo. Unlike other tensions in the book this is played for laughs, especially A's poorly masked resentment.
- Ideal Illness Immunity: While usually the case for supernaturals, the fact that this is subverted here, and those with a healing factor are also falling ill, is an important plot point.
- Instant Illness: Those who fall ill do so instantly, with either Douglas or Bobby, whichever one comes to visit the detective's apartment, immediately collapsing after being infected. That's because it's not so much a real illness as a curse, which the maa-alused can take back any time.
- My Greatest Failure: While investigating the hall of mirrors in the carnival, the detective's love interest is judged by Falk on their guilt regarding the defining moment of their life up to that point.
- Relationship Upgrade: The detective can officially begin a relationship with F midway through the book, and N at the end of the book (both in their solo route and the love triangle route).
- Sadistic Choice: The detective has to choose between saving their love interest or Sanja from the Trappers. If they save Sanja, their love interest will be heavily injured, but if they save their love interest, Sanja will almost always die, which puts the treaty with the maa-alused in jeopardy.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Tapeesa doesn't understand sarcasm if the detective uses it while talking to her.
- Sequel Hook: At the end, a friendly Falk will warn the detective that the leader of the rogue supernaturals has become interested in them.
- The Plague: One is spreading throughout Wayhaven.
- Undercover as Lovers: The detective and their love interest investigate the mysterious carnival that came to town while posing as a couple on a date, at F's insistence.
