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1->''[[AC:[[ArcWords THROUGH YOU I GAIN POWER; SO THROUGH ME SHALL YOU GAIN POWER.]]]]''
2
3''Demon Thesis'' (or, An Anthropological Study of [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Horrors]] Native to the [[CanadaEh Canadian Maritimes]]) is a creative project from Chris Doucette, creator of the webcomic ''Webcomic/TheLastDaysOfFOXHOUND'' and programmer for [[http://lootdrop.com Loot Drop]]. It is hosted at Doucette's website, and [[http://www.doctorshrugs.com/demonthesis/index.php here]] is a direct link to the game.
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5In Doucette's own words, ''Demon Thesis'' is "the bastard child of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' and ''Webcomic/MSPaintAdventures''", which results in a creation that is half webcomic, half browser game. The game sections are done in [=HTML5=] and Javascript, while flash is used for loading sound files for systems that have trouble using [=HTML5=] audio.
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7Most of the story takes place in or around [=MacPhee=] University, a (fictional) small, private, and remote Liberal Arts college in New Brunswick. The main characters are a group of four students (Alain, Clady, Sam, and Val) some of whom have a long history, some of whom have only just been introduced to each other. One day, a couple of local construction workers dig up a strange stone totem and bring it into the anthropological office at [=MacPhee=]. Being that the head of the department is on vacation and Sam is working in the office, he's the one who receives it.
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9When Sam heads to the school library for a little after hours research, (thanks to Val, who works the front desk part-time) he sees something strange that he had somehow never noticed before, there's a recess near the front of the library exactly in the shape of the totem. When Sam tries fitting it in, suddenly there's an explosion, the four are gifted with ElementalPowers, and find themselves using those powers to defend themselves from {{Blob Monster}}s, TheUndead, [[{{Snowlems}} Living Snowmen]], sentient plants from another dimension looking to conquer our dimension, [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent French werewolves]], and more. And all the while, a strange presence called Mesmerus, (the speaker of the ArcWords quote at the top of the page) is speaking in their heads, encouraging the violence a little too much for comfort.
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11All four suspect that Mesmerus has a hidden agenda, but they'll be fighting for their lives and those of everyone else at the school while they try to figure it out.
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13!!This WebOriginal contains examples of:
14* BadAssBookworm: Everyone to a degree, but Alain and Clady are Math and Bio students, respectively, who are about to go into grad school, both are skilled fencers and they're both rather taller and in better shape than Sam and Val.
15* BattleCouple: Alain and Clady.
16* BlowYouAway: This is the elemental power that Clady receives. It has a side effect of creating AntiMagic zones.
17* CanadaEh
18* CassandraTruth: Gordon, the construction worker who finds the artifact, tells his boss that he feels like something awful will happen if he lets it out of his sight.
19* DeadpanSnarker: Clady is the most consistent example, but everyone has their moments. (Even Val, who isn't generally the deadpan type)
20* DeathSeeker: [[spoiler:Deveneur]] reveals himself to be one just before the final battle, ''after'' [[spoiler:he's already baited the heroes into beating him half to death with spells.]]
21* DegradedBoss: A loup-garou (basically a French werewolf) was the boss of the first chapter. In the last two chapters you will fight them several times being used as {{mook}}s, sometimes taking on multiple ones in a single battle.
22* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: The last battle involves [[spoiler:the heroes taking on Mesmerus, a magical EldritchAbomination. So do the four college students with borrowed magical powers beat up the immortal creature from another dimension? Damn right they do!]]
23* DishingOutDirt: Alain's power. It also creates earthen barriers that can stand up to a hit or two, allowing on to entrap a creature inside, to cut off routes of getting around the battle maps, etc.
24* TheDragon: Deveneur is essentially this to [[spoiler:Mesmerus]].
25* DualWielding: Try equipping Val with the axe... never mind that the party owns only one axe. See MorphWeapon and GivingUpOnLogic below.
26* {{Eagleland}}: Val has a few traits of the less nice version, but for the most part she's just a little more aggressive and abrasive than the others.
27* EldritchAbomination: Mesmerus. Also, one chapter has a group of them let loose on the campus. The mere sight of them sends people into a brain lockdown, and Mesmerus has to keep the protagonists from seeing their true form to prevent the same thing from happening to them.
28* EldritchLocation: [=MacPhee=] is built on a place where the barrier between our dimension and others is thin, allowing them to potentially interact. It was originally founded by an occultist as a line of defense against these other dimensions, but over time almost all of the supernatural courses and influences have been forgotten and it's become a mostly normal school.
29* ElementalPowers: Each of the four main characters get empowered with one of the four classical elements. (Well, close to it anyway. Sam gets ice instead of water.)
30* ElementalRockPaperScissors: To a degree. The elements will interact in various different ways, and Doucette created a cheat sheet to help players keep it straight.
31* EnergyAbsorption: Certain enemies will be completely immune to, or even gain health from certain spells. Also, [[spoiler:the entire gambit of Mesmerus turns out to be that he's gaining power from every spell the heroes cast and using it to bring down the barrier between his world and ours.]]
32* EvilCounterpart: Deveneur is also a mage who was empowered by Mesmerus. His goals, however, are in direct conflict with the heroes.
33* {{Fanfare}}: Every time you win a fight (barring the tutorial), the Canadian national anthem will play, with Canadian flag. Sam, Alain and even [[ForeignExchangeStudent Clady]] salute. Val on other hand [[EagleLand seems to wave]] ''[[EagleLand American]]'' [[EagleLand flags]], resulting in a glare from Clady. [[spoiler:[[GameplayAndStoryIntegration When some of the characters has to be fought, the poses change appropriately.]]]]
34* FishOutOfTemporalWater: [[spoiler:Deveneur was an adult during the UsefulNotes/FrenchAndIndianWar who went into a kind of magical stasis after it.]] [[VillainsBlendInBetter Naturally, that doesn't seem to affect him getting around in the 21st century in the slightest]].
35* ForcedTransformation:
36** Both [[spoiler:Gordon, (one of the construction workers who first brought the totem to Sam) and Clady are turned into werewolves thanks to Mesmerus, until they can be defeated]].
37** At the end of Chapter 4, [[spoiler:the entire party is transformed into the phlegm monster enemies for one battle]].
38* ForeignExchangeStudent: Both Val and Clady. Val is American and Clady is Danish, and they are attending a Canadian school.
39* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: Done pretty well throughout, but especially in [[spoiler: the last fight with Deveneur, in which it is pretty much a given that you'll throw out more spells than you've ever used before in a single fight, due to the way the arena is set up. After the battle, this is tied into the narrative justification for Mesmerus' entering the world.]]
40* GivingUpOnLogic: Several examples.
41** The following conversation happens after Clady notices that the foil she gave Sam before a battle has [[MorphWeapon morphed into an easier to wield broadsword]]:
42--->'''Clady:''' Sam, where'd you get that sword?\
43'''Sam:''' Uh... you gave it to me?\
44'''Clady:''' I gave you a fencing foil, not a broadsword.\
45'''Sam:''' ...\
46'''Clady:''' Yeah, never mind. I'm going to stop asking questions like that.
47** When Mesmerus tells the group that he's giving them time off for Spring Break, and then proves that he is in fact knowledgable about the concept, this trope is the only possible way to describe their reaction.
48* HotBlooded: Val is hot blooded and then some. Most prominently, the first time the group encounters the snow golem enemies, Sam tries reasoning with them... until Val suddenly interrupts with an ultimatum of killing them if they don't get out of the group's way. In a few other instances Val shows much more willingness to fight and a quicker temper than the rest of the team.
49* HumansThroughAlienEyes: Remember those [[spoiler:EldritchAbomination enemies whose appearance Mesmerus censored so the group wouldn't mentally shut down as soon as they look at them? Well, those "abominations" are terrified of these strange creatures called humans and see themselves as frantically fighting for their lives when a group of humans start killing them off in ones and twos, SlasherMovie style. The group is horrified to realize this, and refuses to continue slaughtering them for the amusement of Mesmerus. Mesmerus is not pleased at this revolt, and stops even pretending to be on their side as a result.]]
50* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The story is divided into 6 Chapters, each of which is named after a part of the college experience. (For example: recruiting, midterms, spring break, finals, etc.)
51* IJustWantToBeNormal: Val tries to take this approach for awhile after first getting her powers, but the situation doesn't exactly accommodate her.
52* IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight: Defied when [[spoiler:Clady]] is the victim of a ForcedTransformation and attacks the party. Only knocking [[spoiler:her]] senseless with spells undoes the transformation/makes them stop attacking.
53* InTheBack: If one of the player characters can attack a monster from directly behind it with a physical attack, it'll do double the normal damage. This also goes for monsters attacking the player characters.
54* KillItWithFire: It's not long before Val starts showing an unhealthy enthusiasm for her newfound powers.
55-->'''Alain:''' Was she a pyromaniac before this started?\
56'''Clady:''' There was [[NoodleIncident the incident]] with our "fireplace" in our first floor, chimneyless dorm room...
57** Generally speaking, Fire is one of the more useful spells on offense, since the flames stay in place and keep on burning anything forced to remain standing in them.
58* KillItWithIce: Sam's power is ice attacks. It also creates icy areas that both the students and the monsters can skate across, allowing much faster travel. Although since you cant stop once you start moving on the ice until you get to a patch of normal ground, it also means you may go sliding right by the person or place you were headed for.
59* LevelGrinding: Averted. Upgrades (or the acquisition of new weapons and items) happened at pre-determined times, and which upgrade actually happens was usually the result of voting on the site.
60* LightningBruiser: Deveneur, who moves 4 times as fast as the heroes, has full use of spells and physical attacks, and [[AdaptiveAbility grows a resistance to any spell he's hit with]].
61* TheMagicGoesAway: After the last fight. [[spoiler:Without the influence of Mesmerus, there is no more magic.]] This is treated as being somewhat sad but probably for the best.
62* ManipulativeBastard: Mesmerus, full stop.
63* MassOhCrap This is how all of the main characters react [[spoiler:Deveneur's]] WhamLine. Everyone instantly realizes exactly how badly they've been played/manipulated.
64* TheMedic: Everyone can use healing magic, but Sam is easily the most efficient at it, needing only two spell points to do so. Val is the worst, requiring ''five''.
65* MorphWeapon: The fencing foils that Clady and Alain borrow from the fencing team will shift into a broadsword if you give it to Sam, due to the magical effect going on. Clady will notice this and there'll be a bit of dialog in the midst of the battle about it before [[GivingUpOnLogic everyone agrees to give up trying to use logic in the situation]]. Also, give Val the axe and it'll change into two smaller, hand sized axes that she dual wields.
66* MotorMouth: Billy from Newfie. When he starts talking at a normal speed, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness something is very wrong]].
67* MundaneSolution: At the close of the first chapter, Val attempts to smash the totem with a pick-ax. It doesn't work. The futility of this is lampshaded.
68-->'''Alain:''' C'mon, you've read ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. You thought it'd be that easy?
69* OnlyOneName: Mesmerus, of course. Also, the last names of the main characters are only mentioned in one scene. Going by likely order of elimination, their full names are probably Valerie Sun, (which makes her talking about how she should have gone to Arizona State University instead a bit of a pun/reference[[note]]Arizona State's teams are known as the Sun Devils[[/note]]) Clady Vestergaard, Sam Guinness, and Alain Durand.
70* PairTheSmartOnes: The story of how Alain and Clady wound up dating. Summed up by Val thusly when Clady recounts it:
71-->And you lived nerdily ever after, I get the picture.
72* PlayingWithFire: Val's power. It's particularly useful against the snow men enemies, and since the fire continues burning the same spaces where it was cast, it's guaranteed to cause at least some extra damage to enemies.
73* PoliceAreUseless: Justified due to the circumstances, which includes the fact that anyone who comes near a site where the four are battling the supernatural entities gets sick and is unable to comprehend what they're seeing. As for trying to get official police help, Detective Rogers sums it up like this:
74-->It's not that I don't believe you, if you can [[PlayingWithFire make fire appear out of nowhere]] [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure I'll take the rest on faith]], but I can't file a police report with the story you're giving me and be taken seriously. We can't press charges against a werewolf for starting a magical fire that caused no property damage... the justice system isn't set up to deal with your kind of problems.
75* PoorCommunicationKills: The first time the group encounters the living snowmen (or snowmunculus) Sam tries to peacefully explain what's going on and get the snow creatures to let them pass when Val butts in with "Get out of our way or I'll melt your ugly ass!" The snowmen don't take kindly to the threat, and become recurring enemies.
76* PostVictoryCollapse: In a way. After the final battle [[spoiler:everyone collapses in relief and break down into tears of joy because all the stress they've been under has just been lifted all at once]]. As the narration puts it:
77-->And so 5 months of psychological trauma were suddenly released.
78* PublicDomainSoundtrack: All the background music was chosen to make sure there wouldn't be anyone trying to make copyright claims.
79* PuzzleBoss: Insofar as this is a tactics game, every fight is a puzzle, but both [[spoiler: Deveneur (in both fights) and Mesmerus]] in particular qualify for the trope.
80* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Both Professor Sheffield and Detective Rogers. The school's president, Fields, while clued in to what is happening, is noticeably less pleasant, helpful, and accommodating than the other two are.
81-->'''Val:''' (After Fields essentially blackmails them into protecting the school) I'm almost positive that's illegal.\
82'''President Fields:''' Welcome to Shit Happens 101.
83* RedOniBlueOni: Val and Clady, roommates and friends with very different styles. Val is impulsive, abrasive, and HotBlooded, Clady is a level-headed, snarky intellectual with a tendency to nitpick statements to death, which is pointed out more than once.
84* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Using the magic powers granted by Mesmerus weakens the barriers that separate his dimension and ours. After the totem allowed Mesmerus to effect the world, he both granted the powers to the students and either created or summoned the other enemies solely to force them to use spells and weaken the barriers enough for Mesmerus to fully cross into our world.]]
85* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler:After weakening the barriers between dimensions enough, Mesmerus needs blood to be shed in the library so he can cross over into our world. Deveneur (already a DeathSeeker) accomplishes this by making the group believe that he is in the midst of summoning Mesmerus, and letting them pound him with spells. It works.]]
86* TwoferTokenMinority: In Canada, Alain counts, being a black French-Canadian. He lampshades the fact.
87* VerbalTic: The Canadian eh is avoided, but oddly enough Mesmerus uses it once in the opening chapter. Shows just how long he'd been watching Canada through the thin place in dimensions.
88* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler:The entire group plays directly into the plans of Mesmerus and Deveneur. Every time they use the powers Mesmerus granted them, it lets him get closer to entering our world.]]
89* WeirdnessCensor: Mesmerus imposes one on the group when they face a particular enemy. The mere sight of these creatures had caused InnocentBystanders to go straight in mental lockdown.
90* WhamLine: [[spoiler:After the penultimate battle, Deveneur finally clues the party in when he says "And every spell weakens the barrier between his world and ours." With that, the group finally understands what Mesmerus' true goal was, and how he's been using them since the very beginning.]]
91* WorldOfPun: Puns are made ''constantly'' in game mode, as virtually any action you have the characters take is accompanied by a pun or reference. For example, give Clady the spear and let her attack with it, and the attack is called "[[UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler Clad the Impaler]]". Give Val, the sole American, the axe, and it's called "Series/AmericanChopper" when she uses it. If Alain, a French-Canadian, goes into a defensive mode to take less damage, it's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloc_Qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois Block Quebecois]], and so on and so forth.
92* YouWillBeSpared: When [[spoiler:Mesmerus]] appears, he offers to kill the group quickly and painlessly since he feels like he owes them.

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