They Say You Should Beg Your Plants for Mercy

Jurors of the Houseplant Court of Justice, you are called today to judge the acts of cruel monsters. What twisted mind would ignore other humans' warnings and rip precious blossoms from the ground in the name of outdated mating rituals? What can we do against the ruthless hate of one who extinguished the voices of an entire forest, committing genocide in the name of palm oil?

This is a game about dealing with the fall of our civilization by talking to the plants who conquered the world, where you play the plants. And the humans on trial for our crimes against them.  

The players all embody an hostile jury of Houseplants, the top experts on human behavior, who sit still and masked in an apartment-turned-courtroom. All players also take turns embodying one of the Defendants in scenes from the Arboreal Trials instituted after the reconquest of the planet. These scenes in the game always feature the Defendant alone with the Plants, and are about the judgement of their crimes, which to us may feel heinous (such as the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest) or petty (such as lethal neglect of the geraniums on your windowsill).

They Say You Should Beg Your Plants for Mercy is a chamber larp for 4 to 7 players written by Oscar Biffi, Maria Guarneri & Chiara Locatelli from the Italian Chamber Orchestra. It was inspired by Raph D'Amico's They Say You Should Talk to Your Plants and J. Walton's Personal Testimony from the Last Kings of Heaven.

Honorable mention in the 2023 Golden Cobra challenge.