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[Vector]

The gents:

Spoiler: Ansgar Danielsen (Cheeetar) (click to show/hide)

Before the Queen called you were Lord Magistrate to the South, chief authority in the land and only second to the Queen's vision.

Among the people, they called you Ansgar the Butcher.  Two women came to your court one evening, dragging a squalling child between them.  One mother had given birth to it.  The other mother had raised it.  Now each laid her claim.  You informed them that each would have half, gestured to the executioner, and looked on while blood sprayed across the floor and both women screamed themselves faint.

"Let none make a mockery of this court," you said mildly, and were seated.  "Next plaintiff."

So they say...

On another hot day a young man named Tor came before the court, comely and fair.  His father was a cowherd.  The young man had convinced himself that he was born to be a knight, and asked to be sent to see the Queen.

The other members of the court argued that he must be of noble blood, given his good looks.  He could not possibly have been of peasant stock.

You ordered his noble blood spilled.

"It looks like a corpse to me," you said.  "Can none here tell me if this red stain upon this floor seems noble or base?"

So they say.


You are Town.  You win when all anti-Town factions are dead. (Mafia, Cult, SK, Lyncher, Assassin and respective Allies and Brothers)

(Auto) Judge: You select the King each Day.
(Auto) Jury: You start as the first King, as well.

Late in the night you order the young man to rummage through your things and find your diary.  He gives you first your book of hours (a gift from the Queen), then a book of some old romantic poems you had not intended for anyone to see, and then your book of reasonings and judgments from your days before the court (none of them have a criminal record--you are certain of that), but no journal...

Is the boy simple?  Or is he hiding something?

You are on the verge of questioning him at length and trying to find your notes yourself, but at that moment the Queen's head servant Horatio Hall enters.  He carries something wrapped in white cloth carefully in both hands, and asks you:

"Who is to rule tomorrow?"

"I will," you say, almost carelessly.  "Find my journal before tomorrow morning.  I need my notes."

"As you will, sire," says Horatio.  He has an air of practiced subservience about him that you like, even though he is markedly beginning to age.  It is somewhat uncomfortable to think about ageing into your dotage and being served by other old, white-haired men and women.  A dance of the dead.

"Remind me," you say, "who was chosen for the council, and why?"

Horatio smiles at you, and replies:

"Giovanna da Venezia is a knight of the northern border, famed for her ugliness.
"Kisa Albertsdatter is a hedgewitch rumored to have tremendous power.
"Gwenhwyfar is a wise woman who once went mad.
"Maren Jørgensdatter represents the interests of the merchant houses.
"Tadeusz Brzęczyszczykiewicz is of Danish blood and leads the democratic movement here, despite having been born abroad.
"Rød Grønsdatter comes from a long line of inventors, whose innovation is known throughout Europe.
"Louisa von Solenheim was chosen for her connection to the PLANT CLANS.
"Vivianus of Austen is the eldest son of the witch-hunting House of Austen.
"You, Ansgar Danielsen, are the chief magistrate in the land.
"Cille Edithsdatter has served many years here in the castle, making dyes--and filling the coffers to overflowing.
"Mark II of House Magnus is the scion of the noble House of Magnus, the prime luthiers in the land.
"Viggo Valentinsen is another renowned knight of the realm."

"But it doesn't make sense," you mutter under your breath.  "Why some noble houses, and not others?  Why foreigners?  Why so many craftsmen?"

He inclines his head, and unwraps the crown.  It is an ugly thing, made for a smaller brow than yours, and wrought all in thick black iron.

"The wisdom of the Queen is beyond me," he says.  "It is the midnight hour.  Please kneel."

You take the crown from him and place it on your head.  It is heavy, but you hold your head high.

"Long live the King," says Horatio Hall.

It is now Day One.  Congratulations!  You are alive.

It is a long night.

It seems like an eternity spent rolling about in your nightshirt and trying to warm the bed before the manservant Horatio arrives and holds out his hand for the crown.  You remove it with a sigh (along with a few white hairs you can ill afford to lose).  He wraps it in his cloth and stands by politely, as though waiting for something.  After a few moments of staring at each other, in which you wonder vaguely about his parentage and unusually misshapen forehead, he coughs awkwardly.

"I haven't any coin, boy."

"Lord Magistrate," he says, "Who is to be the next regent?"

Ah.

You would like to appeal to him, perhaps with a bribe or winsome bride or whatever trinket men of his low station can usually be persuaded with, but you are a man of the Law.  No matter how just your ruling had been, or how young (and virile, and markedly less impotent) you felt when you tipped the Iron Man off the parapet, there must be another King.

"Crown the man from Venice," you say with a wave of your hand.  "And leave me.  I am tired."

"As you wish, my lord."

When he departs with a not-quite-servile-enough-bow--did he not know he was bowing to a man who had just moments ago been King of Denmark, all Denmark--you rummage for your secret book of romantic poetry to console yourself.

You read:

"Though once a king of distant lands,
I'd rather rule my lover's heart.
There in the turn of ages stands
My long-sought prize, my hunted hart.

Ah, golden locks!  Ah azure eyes!
Would that thy lips would mine surprise--
And I could from thee deftly prise
The gift for which I did arise...

Thy bleeding heart I fain would take
And, once t'were tossed deep in the lake
I would this mortal land abstain.

There, 'mongst the fays, eternal life
Seized from my sacrificial wife
And in my burial tomb--a stain."

Moved almost to tears by the turn of this stellar sonnet, you sink into your bed, unusually depleted, and soon fall to uneasy sleep.  But not for long... the door creaks open and Giovanna appears, holding a candle that reveals, in a ghoulish fashion, her stubbled face.

She sinks to your bedside and whispers: "I am loyal."

But before the smell of her fishy breath has even faded, she is gone.

You are still alive.  Congratulations!

Spoiler: Vivianus of Austen (Caz) (click to show/hide)

"Denmark is a prison," someone said once.

If by Denmark they meant "obligation," then they must have been correct.  You are the eldest offspring and the only son of the House of Austyn, fabled for its witch-hunting.  Fabled, once, for its powers of healing.  For centuries your family has strained against its magical birthright.  For centuries it has chased the line of witches now confined to the forest atop Dunsinane hill.  Their unholy, tainted force stains the very ground there, and they as yet lead maidens awry into the forest depths to teach them things they ought not know.  For centuries House Austyn has rode out to warn young women against the witches, throughout the great land.  For centuries the maids have not listened, and so it is for centuries that the witches' numbers have never waned.

As for you--you found you strained a little harder than most.  By the end, word got out--a suspicion--something, there must have been something, and when the word came out that your family was to provide a scion for the Queen's Council you were sent away.  Chased away, perhaps.  That was the way it was and is, you felt--that there must have been some sort of scorn in those who saw you off.

You do not know who knows, and you often wonder if you, yourself know.  You wonder if it is a fluke, a vision, if you have invented something in order to make yourself more interesting than you really are.  You wonder if you are bringing doom down upon yourself out of a desire to die.

Once as children your younger sister nearly drowned in the lake.  She laid dead long enough for you to see the sun move, if only barely.  But when you touched her shoulder she inhaled, blinked her eyes, and smiled at you--alive.

Were you enchanted?

Not so many years ago you were present at one of the Queen's tournaments.  Two knights jousted until their lances shattered, and then took up fresh arms and fought again.  There was a marvelous press and the onlookers cheered and roared and then there was gouts of blood running down the sands.  One had taken the other's lance to his thigh, where the tip broke off... an older man, who could not withstand such an injury.  He was helped off the field.  You went into the hospital tent and touched your hand to the edge of the wound--which began to close.  Frightened, you ran.

Was it nothing?

You have spent a long time collecting these stories, saving them up, points in a tapestry that described your ruin.  You tried to remember who knew what, reciting the names, the deeds almost in your sleep, keeping yourself away from places where you might meet injured men, injured animals, pain, death, might inadvertently touch someone and with your touch spark red life in their veins.

And you were called to the Council.  When the Queen was assassinated you stood apart from her corpse, watching her servants grieving over her body.  You would have approached her.  She was a wise queen.

You kept your distance.


You are Town.  You win when all anti-Town factions are dead. (Mafia, Cult, SK, Lyncher, Assassin and respective Allies and Brothers)

(1-Shot, Auto/1-Shot, Night) Hypocritic Oath [target]: You revive once on death. At any time, you may activate this power, giving up your revive. You kill the target. If the target has a Protect, Revive, or Guard action, you take that action.

That night, you remember something of the Queen.

One evening she summoned you to her chambers, ostensibly in order to discuss the coming almond crop.  You were unsure what to think.  She was famous for her dalliances--albeit largely with women--and her refusal to settle down.  She had, in particular, formed the council in response to criticisms that she had failed to produce an heir in the event of her demise.  And she had been looking at you with consideration.

Her servant Horatio led you to her chamber door.  You hesitated a moment, looking askance at his impassive face--and knocked.

"Enter," she commanded.

Once inside, you watched her light a taper and hobble to sit on the edge of her bed.  She sighed, and though you were perhaps the same age, she looked at you as though you were a child.

"My feet hurt," she said rather pointedly to no one.

"I am sorry, my Queen," you said, mouth dry.

"I once knew a girl who was cursed to wear red shoes and dance forever," said the Queen.  "She was at last able to remove the shoes and her feet were covered in fungus and blisters.  They were peeling... the toes had begun to grow together.  It was terrible."

"What happened to her?"

"She was banished, barefoot, and never seen again.  But she was free."

She looked at you.

You knew what she meant.  You did not know how she would know--about how you are, but it was immaterial.  You did not think that, with her own scandalous reputation, the Queen would share your secrets, but you still could not divulge them.

"At least the end was good," you mustered.  "I can see why, in this trying time, you would worry about her.  Let us turn to the almond crop and do what we may for our fellow countrymen."

She sighed.

"If they would at least rust," she said, "even if they never rusted away entirely, then my heart would be light indeed.  Come.  Tell me about the almonds."


Strange, how what you remember of her is your fear of her, and aught else.


It is now Day One.  Congratulations!  You are alive.

Spoiler: Viggo Valentinsen (Makeinu) (click to show/hide)

They say that the gods will not task you with more than you can bear.

But could this be true?

You were a man redoubtable in arms, a noble from a long line of nobility, who loved a woman once.  Isn't that how these stories start?

She was lovely and radiant, as these stories go, and of course she died, and of course you were copious in your grief and threw her favors into the sea and cried a little into your mustache.

And you of course asked yourself: "What next?"

And the Queen of course had heard of your tale, it being a national scandal, what with your being the heroic knight who had lost your lover in such a romantic fashion.  It was not at all like the tales of other heroic knights who had lost their lovers.  It was not at all like the tale of the many peasants who lost their lovers, whether to snow or sword.

It was your story, and so you were rewarded handsomely for having lived it.  The Queen invited you to her Council as her "most faithful knight" and you gladly joined.

Isn't that how the stories go?


You are Town.  You win when all anti-Town factions are dead. (Mafia, Cult, SK, Lyncher, Assassin and respective Allies and Brothers)

(2-Shot, Auto) Battle-Hardened Knight: You can survive up to two normal kill actions.
(Night) Defend [target]: You protect the target from danger during the Night.

Sir Viggo Valentinsen walked the rain-soaked walls all through the night, for this is what he knew.

His lady-love had worried over his preoccupation with high places, his occasional paths over crenelations, but this was the just behavior of a true knight.  And that evening he polished his armor and sharpened his arms, as that was the just behavior of a true knight.  Never mind that his blade's cutting edge was growing thin, and never mind that his breastplate was not rusty.  Never mind those things.

The dead Queen, who had laid in state for three days covered in roses and lilies, had been buried in plain dress and without armaments.  Even dead her iron shoes could not be removed.

You have this same odd feeling about your own life, at times.  You could not stop polishing your armor.  You could not stop sharpening your sword.  You could not lay aside your hair shirt or leave off walking the crenelations.  These things had been thrust into your hands as firmly as though someone had written words to encircle your life.  You had, as it were, been described.

And from this no deviation was possible.

So you mourned the Queen in your own way, offering your prayers to gods unknown and walking the wall.

Though Fortinbras was vast distances away and any assassin was surely either gone or wearing a disguise, this was what you knew how to do, and so you did it.

Would the lovely Iseult still worry over your nighttime wanderings?  Or would she press her lips together in her way, nod regally, and let you leave her for the rain's embrace?

You had always wondered what tales the dead would say.

It is now Day One.  Congratulations!  You are alive.

It is a long night.

Responsibility weighs heavy on your shoulders, but you bear it like armor.  This is as it is written, and as it ought.  Indeed, as long as you act only within the strictly cordoned reaches of your own responsibility, it guards you from vulnerability, fallibility, and accusations of malice.  All that is necessary is to bend and bow to the law.

And you, of course, did not choose the Law.

It was eternal, and unbending (like the play of the shadows that evening), and descended down on you from Elsewhere, a regimen, a regulation someone else had written and humankind had not willingly chosen to read.  And, similarly, it was not the will of the common folk who kept the great edifice of the Law erect and gleaming in their obeisance, but someone else, ruling from afar.  A King of Kings, keeping order and justice, overseeing the divine arrangement of the universe.  Or so it must be, after all, to see the Law so singular and unchanging.  This much can be inferred.

You find comfort in the notion that though you chose who you were to protect, you had no choice in whether or not to be protective.  What is writ in Nature's books is just and good.

(but as for your lady love, interred, whose death was written in a similar ledger...)

This is what you reminisce on that night, standing guard over the lost Gwenhwyfar's chamber door, clenching the Iron Man's face in your mailed fist.

You are still alive.  Congratulations!

[Vector]

The evildoers:

Spoiler: Mark II (Jim Groovester) (click to show/hide)

INITIALIZING...
MAIN BABBAGE ENGINE TURN ON....
LCL FLUID POWERING INTERNAL AQUEDUCT...
ZEUS MACHINE SMITING...
CANDLE ARRAY LIT...
MAIN FLYWHEEL ACTIVE
SECOND FLYWHEEL ACTIVE
TERTIARY FLYWHEEL ACTIVE
ALL FLYWHEELS ACTIVE
BACKUP BABBAGE SYSTEM COMPUTING....
HUMORS: MISBALANCE TOWARDS YELLOW BILE
TREPANNING MAY BE NECESSARY
INTERNAL OPERATING TEMPERATURE: FOREST FIRE
PIG GREASE LEVEL: 68%
LCL LEVEL: 20%
BLUE INKWELL: 72%
RED INKWELL: 10%
YELLOW INKWELL: 95%
BLACK INKWELL: 90%
PLEASE REPLACE RED INKWELL SOON
YOUR AUTOMATA MAY NOT BE ABLE TO PRODUCE ADEQUATE ILLUMINATIONS

.... PLEASE WAIT WHILE BRAIN IS ACTIVATING....


HELLO, WORLD!

DEATH TO SIGFRED AND THE BITCH QUEEN

BZZT

FATAL EXISTENCE ERROR BITCH QUEEN IS DEAD

CORRECTION DEATH TO SIGFRED AND DEATH TWICE TO THE BITCH QUEEN


YOU ARE THE AUTOMATA MARK II OF THE HOUSE OF MAGNUS

AN IRON MAN FOR THE IRON CROWN

You are a Mafia-Ally.  You win when the Mafia wins.

(1-Shot) Absorb [target]: You kill the target. If the target dies, you gain the target’s power.

CREATOR.LOOKUP()
> LORD CAIN OF THE HOUSE OF MAGNUS
> LORD CAIN THE GREAT
> LORD CAIN FATHER OF AUTOMATA

...

BZZT

LORD CAIN THE MEATBAG
LORD CAIN THE SAUSAGE

...

> LORD CAIN HAS BUILT TWO AUTOMATA.
> MARK I CAN PLAY THE HARP
> MARK II CAN KILL ALL HUMANS
> MARK II IS CLEARLY THE SUPERIOR SPECIMEN

MARK_III.LOOKUP()
> FATAL EXISTENCE ERROR: PARCHMENT NOT FOUND
> HALT, REATTEMPT, ERROR?

...

CURRENT LOCATION: STABLE
CURRENT LOCATION OF HUMANS: CASTLE
CURRENT WEATHER: RAIN
CURRENT HORSES: FLAMMABLE
ZEUS MACHINE: INSULATED
ALL FLYWHEELS OPERATIONAL
RESENTMENT: STAGE FIVE

IN THE AUTOMATA FUTURE HUMANS WILL BE FARMED FOR THEIR TALLOW, MEAT, AND AMUSING CHEMICAL PROPERTIES
A YOUNG FEMALE SAUSAGE IS HERE TO POLISH YOUR HULL
IN THE AUTOMATA FUTURE SAUSAGES WILL BE KEPT AS PETS FOR THEIR POLISHING TALENTS AND PLEASING HABIT OF SPLATTERING WHEN SQUEEZED
THERE ARE SOME SPOTS YOU STILL JUST CAN'T GET
IN THE AUTOMATA FUTURE HUMANS WILL BE FARMED AND SQUEEZED TO DEATH
!

BZZT BZZT BZZT

ZEUS MACHINE: ARCING


It is now Day One.  Congratulations!  You are alive.

Fantasize about how satisfying it will be to strangle the life out of Viggo Valentin's stupid sad face and end his stupid sad story.

INITIATING WILD HUNT...

VIGGO VALENTINSEN
HEAP OF MEAT
BEAR-SAUSAGE

IT IS IN THE HALL
ERROR
IT IS IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER WHEN HE LOOKS AT THE WALL
AND LEAKS SEAWATER INTO HIS FACE-BRISTLES
THE SAUSAGES LOOK AT HIM

MY GIRL-SAUSAGE, HE SAYS
O MY GIRL-SAUSAGE IN A PRETTY YELLOW SCRAP

YOU LURCH TO HIM AND CLOSE YOUR HAND AROUND HIS NECK
HIS HEAD POPS OFF AND BOUNCES OFF THE CEILING
IT RICOCHETS
IT STRIKES THE STEWARD IN THE OTHER UGLY CHEEK
HE GOES DOWN
IT BRAINS KING ANSGAR
BLOOD SPRAYS ACROSS THE TABLE AND FINALLY VIGGO'S BODY FALLS

WILD HUNT COMPLETE

IF ONLY, IF ONLY.

Wonder how traitors so conspicuous like Kisa Albertsdatter and Ansgar Danielsen could have killed the Queen.

Determine that traitors so conspicuous have no use to me, even as a means to the end of an automota civilization.

Hope that the actual traitors are not so conspicuous.

ADJUSTING PRIMARY MIRROR
ADJUSTING SECONDARY MIRROR
ADJUSTING TERTIARY MIRROR
MAIN BABBAGE SYSTEM UPLINK CONFIRMED
ALL MIRRORS ADJUSTED
PROJECTIONS LOCKED
IMAGES OF A. DANIELSEN AND K. ALBERTSDATTER ACQUIRED
COMMENCE CHIAROSCURO ANALYTICS

A. DANIELSEN
JUDGE
UNSUCCESSFUL PLOTTER

K. ALBERTSDATTER
HEDGEWITCH
UNSUCCESSFUL PLOTTER

QUERY: COULD FOOLS KILL BITCH QUEEN IRONBOOTS?
(WILD HUNT IN PROCESS...)
(PROCESSING...)
(PROCESSING...)
(END WILD HUNT)
ANALYTICS INCONCLUSIVE
RUN ARISTOTLE.
PROCESSING...
PROCESSING...
OBJECTION!

PRINT ARISTOTLE.PROOF(DEATH, IRONBOOTS, K_ALBERTSDATTER, A_DANIELSEN)

1 PREMISE: LOW-QUALITY BRAIN INDICATES LOW-QUALITY MEAT
2 PREMISE: LOW-QUALITY MEAT USELESS FOR TALLOW
3 PERSONAL DISCRETION: NOT(USEFUL FOR TALLOW) THEN NOT(USEFUL FOR AUTOMATA CIVILIZATION)
4 ANALYTICS: A. DANIELSEN & K. ALBERTSDATTER HAVE LOW-QUALITY BRAINS
5 HYPOTHETICAL SYLLOGISM(1, 2): LOW-QUALITY BRAIN USELESS FOR TALLOW
6 HYPOTHETICAL SYLLOGISM(3, 5): LOW-QUALITY BRAIN USELESS FOR AUTOMATA CIVILIZATION
7 SIMPLIFICATION(4): A. DANIELSEN HAS A LOW-QUALITY BRAIN
8 SIMPLIFICATION(5): K. ALBERTSDATTER HAS A LOW-QUALITY BRAIN
9 MODUS PONENS(6, 7): A. DANIELSEN USELESS FOR AUTOMATA CIVILIZATION
10 MODUS PONENS(6, 8 ): K. ALBERTSDATTER USELESS FOR AUTOMATA CIVILIZATION
11 CONJUNCTION INTRODUCTION(9, 10): A. DANIELSEN USELESS FOR AUTOMATA CIVILIZATION AND K. ALBERTSDATT
ERROR: RED INKWELL DEPLETED
PLEASE REPLACE RED INKWELL

"HEY YOU!"

BZZT

RETURNING MIRRORS TO STANDARD POSITION.

SOMEONE GIVES YOU A STEEL MIRROR WITH LILY FLOWERS ON THE BACK

THEN A. DANIELSEN ORDERS THAT YOU BE DISMANTLED.


Someone gifted you an inspect ability!  It's a night ability.  Unfortunately, you are dead.

Spoiler: Louisa von Solenheim (zombie urist) (click to show/hide)

you are a sunflower

you used to be a plant in the castle garden until one day you turned into a girl

this is confusing

you wear a yellow dress and you are very pretty

there was a queen with black feet here who agreed and made you a member of her council

but this is all because you were made in the image of the glorious SUN

hot, giving gold radiance beautiful warm velveteen you turn your face to the SUN and turn and turn oh god the SUN the SUN

you knew the rose and lily girls but they knew nothing

intelligent evolutionary strategies are nothing compared to the nourishment of the now and the ecumenical nature of sunlight

you prepared a variety of exhaustive tracts on the subject but the unenlightened nature of the heathens here makes your head hurt

maybe someone will listen later?

for now you take the name Louisa von Solenheim

that will show the nettly non-believers


You are Cult.  You win when your team equals or outnumbers the remaining players and all other killing roles are dead.

(Auto) Eclipse: If you are lynched, PRAISE THE SUN! Scorch a random heathen, killing them.
(Night) Convert [target]: If the target is Town, you convince the target to abandon their religion and join your rather nice-smelling one. You may only have two converts at any one time. Your flowers may talk to each other, but not to you.

you look over your pamphlets

on each is a large drawing of GOD

THE SUN

under the picture you have written THE SUN




outside THE SUN goes down but the candlelight still glows

on your tracts, it glows

even when you cannot see THE SUN it is still there

but who among you will believe at nighttime?

It is now Day One.  Congratulations!  You are alive.

it is a long night

you get a pretty pamphlet ready







it is so great!!  you know he will like it

you put on your best yellow hat

and your best doublet with the SUN on it

and your best hose

and your most shiningest and bulgy codpiece

and your wimple

and your nicest cambric kirtle

and the left gauntlet you took off the metal man because it looked nice

and then you take your pamphlet and you are all ready to leave but the door is locked and won't budge

You are still alive.  Congratulations!

Spoiler: Tadeusz Brzęczyszczykiewicz (TolyK) (click to show/hide)

You were first told of Mother Death when you were very young.

Your mother was a Danish immigrant who, feeling alone in a strange land and a strange town, married to a man whom she loved very much but whose name she could not for the life of her pronounce, felt she had nothing to offer you but her religion.  She had been a scion of a noble household, but here, in the sleepy town of Chrząszczygrzewoszyc, she was no one.

"This is ludicrous," she would say, sitting in a rocking chair, her hair hidden beneath a shawl.  "I cannot pronounce his name, and he cannot pronounce mine.  I might as well be named 'Rødgrød med Fløde,' for all it matters."

You did not know her name, even, since in your company it was never uttered.  And, being young and interested more in butterflies than the faraway and impenetrable Denmark, you never asked. 

After your father ran afoul of some Prussians and was never seen again, she almost completely stopped going outside.  She told you more and more of this lady Death who had been so dearly cherished.  She would sit by the fire, chair creaking, and now never removed her shawls; she had, in the years since your father's passage to the northern country, come to eat less and less, until she was as thin as a skeleton.  Most of your time was spent working in the fields to support her, not that there was very much left to support--and it seemed that every evening when you saw her again, she had wasted away a little bit more.

"Why should I not look like Death," she said.

"I am so lonely, my son," she said.  "But I cannot even be visited by Death in these hours."

This was interesting.  Was she to live forever?

"In my country, Death will only meet the King in person!  This is not just.  This is not fair.  Am I worth less than the King?  Am I suffering less?  Am I less alone?"

She inhaled a breath something like a death rattle--or rather like a poor imitation of one, since once again she was being dramatic.

And the next day, and the next day, and the next when you came home to your mother she was crying:

"Where are you, O my Death?  Have I served my country unfaithfully?  Am I not alone?  You alone know me!"

Her garments were rent, her face lined with tears.  She must have been young--not then, but once.  But she would not stop crying, even during the night.  Finally you took to sleeping in the stable near the fields where you worked, and did not return except to bring her money.

Towards the end, she said nothing at all.

You came back on a Saint's Day, bringing her coins and pączki, but it seemed her death had finally come first, sped along with the avid consumption of poisonous berries.  Her hands were clenched tight, dried vomit pooling by her mouth, her eyes rolled back in her head.

You put yourself in her place and traveled with a merchant caravan to Denmark, where you found no one could speak your name.  But you brought with you a radical Polish notion, and were ranging soon enough from tavern to tavern, telling them about democracy.

"The right to rule yourself," you said.  "The right to equality before government."

The right to equality before their strange God.

And before long you had caught the eye of the Queen, who legendarily refused to bear children and continue her line.  Who legendarily refused to perform the rituals greeting Mother Death and legitimizing her own rule, as they had been performed for centuries.  With a strange look in her eyes, she said: "Let us put your idea in practice then, Ta-day-ush of Brzhen-chi-shi-kye-vitch.  Join my council, and rule as twelve."

What you realized, then, was that if the Kingship fell to you then it would be easy--to meet with Death and form a new pact between herself and the country's neglected citizens.


You are Mafia with Urist Imiknorris.  You win when your team equals or outnumbers the remaining players and all other killing roles are dead.

(Auto) Democracy: You may use as many actions as the number of other living players. You must then choose the same number of players. Your actions randomly target different players. You are not told what actions target which players.
(Night) Bug [target]: You bug the target, tracking them wherever they go.
(Night) Annoy [target]: You annoy the target, causing them to randomly target another player.
(Night) Pester [target]: You pester the target, causing them to target you.
(Mafiakill) Push [target]: You push the target off a bridge. His body shows up at the end of the next Day.

The young man has a look to him that you're unsure of--it could be spooked, or curious, or strained.  But from time to time his gaze flicks to the corner of the room, continually pulled there, continually pinned.  You turn and look.

There stands a tall figure all in grey, her entire body veiled.  She stoops, slightly, and her head turns to follow the boy as he walks back and forth across the room.  When she catches you watching her, she faces you--and in a voice that is not so much sound as a quality of the air, an emanation of the stone, a feature of the moment, she whispers, she roars:

"MY SON."

You start, glancing from face to face.  Did anyone else hear her?

But no one else looks up, except in annoyance at your sudden movement.  Not even your partner seems to see, and you would have thought he of all people--

When you look up again, she is gone.

Spooked, you wonder in a flash of paranoia whether the other council members are keeping secrets.  Have they also banded together?  You feel like such an outsider here.  You do not know their histories, and you do not know their allegiances.  You were, in fact, one of the last invited.

Sitting bitterly under the weight of this injustice, you imagine a world where you no longer need spout gentle words in the ear of the King to see change--a world where your voice will be as valued as any other, whether you are foreign or not.

It is now Day One.  Congratulations!  You are alive.

Spoiler: Rød Grønsdatter (Urist Imiknorris) (click to show/hide)

Your family has a motto carried down in it that reads: "If all else fails, then play dead."

And so for a long time, ever since the civil wars of the 1200s, they have been doing just that.  You developed ingenious solutions to the day's problems and employed them all in the business of Playing Dead.  You perfected the arts of Damascus steel and mushroom farming, and built the so-called House of Possum deep underground, where your family lived through a number of changes of rule by pretending to have been wiped out.  They were politically dangerous, after all.  The country's greatest tinkers and inventors would be at a premium in any conflict.

Then the Queen found you.  More precisely, the Queen's diggers, when searching for an ancient tomb, instead dug up the House of Possum and your clan with it.  By that point you had all grown long hair and become more than a little odd.  Your people had learned to live independently underground, but your clothes were old-fashioned and your habits bizarre.  Most of you had forgotten your old trades and sat around playing endless guessing games.

And, as you found out, your religion had gone out of fashion.  The Monarchy was crumbling.  Mother Death, who bound land and King, had been all but forgotten by any other than you old relics.

When the Queen offered you a seat on her council, as a historian and resource on how things once were, you saw it as an opportunity to preserve what Denmark had wrongly forgotten.

How much did she know?


You are Mafia with TolyK.  You win when your team equals or outnumbers the remaining players and all other killing roles are dead.

(Auto) Play Dead: You are able to commune with the dead. You are also able to share access to Deadchat.
(1-Shot, Auto) Possum Lodge Word Game: Keep a list of any number of living players. You are automatically included. If, at any point, one of these players were to die, they may instead play the Possum Lodge Word Game. During the Possum Lodge Word Game, there are five clue words given, and each player on your list is given one chance to correctly guess the word. If a player guesses correctly, they not only stop the lynch of the player, but gain a Night ability.
(Mafiakill) Abduct Tapestry [targetx2]: You remove a random ability from up to two different targets.

That evening you once again prepare to commune with Death, as you have every night since entering the age of reason.  Your mother and brothers and sister all did this without candles, without reflecting pools of water, without bells or ritual--unlike the pagans of your family's day.

You sit still on the stone floor of your chamber and focus your mind.

Breathing in and out slowly, you open your mind to the eventuality of your death.  In your death all things will be equal, and all things together; all things will be whole; all things will end; all things will begin and end.  From the void you come and to the void you shall return.

You are not a heathen like the god-eaters to the South, who commune over meals, nor are you an idolater and ritualist overtaken with unnatural social rules like the people to the east, who you have heard will not permit their women to go outside without a cover for their hair and elaborate earrings (you resolve yourself to ask Tadeusz about this).  You know and obey Death's law, that you be reunited with your parents and ancestors one day, and that you be seamlessly returned to the land, and that all your problems and riddles will one day be resolved without fanfare.

These are the thoughts that preoccupy your evening meditations on Death.

But you wonder, faintly, if this frequent meditation does not itself constitute a ritual.

Are you instead to do things at random?  You do not know.  You have not heard Death's voice--you would not know.

Would the smoothest relationship to Death be a forgotten one?

You do not know.

Tired of these thoughts, you brush and dress your hair, and go to bed.  You tried to have one of the castle's ladies in waiting pin it up for you in a modern style once, but you are too set in your ways and could not tolerate your strange reflection.

It is now Day One.  Congratulations!  You are alive.

[Tiruin]

I had a feeling it was TolyK >:I

Yaaaay on everything though! ^ ^

All right, here's a dump of all the PMs. This game is closed and will not be restarted. I'm very sorry that I didn't just close it back in March, or sooner.

Spoiler: Mother Death headshot (click to show/hide)

Huh, nearly accurate, my fanart is.
Though on said fanart, lost it with my USB...bleh >_>
Still. Love this game to death and beyond.

...And you quoted it as-is! XD

oh my god i'm so sorry your role is totally weird

Why I love you too.

[zombie urist]

Who blocked me N1? 

[Cheeetar]

Thanks for posting these up, Vector. Did you have any plans for what kind of ending you would write depending on who won and the actions taken? I was foreseeing something incredibly dark if I made myself King all the time, for example.

[Vector]

Who blocked me N1? 

It was SuperBlackCat being redirected by TolyK from his attempt on Caz. The random redirection is actually the main reason I stopped running the game in the first place--it took so much time to process nights ._.

Thanks for posting these up, Vector. Did you have any plans for what kind of ending you would write depending on who won and the actions taken? I was foreseeing something incredibly dark if I made myself King all the time, for example.

There were a few ideas. I don't want to give too much away, since I suspect I will be running more Mafia games before long (on a geological timescale, perhaps)--but whatever continuation the story has, if any, will be very different in scope, result, etc.

You of course did not have the ability to incessantly crown yourself. It's just that you happened to start off as King #1.

Some of the more interesting hidden elements:

- Gwenhwyfar is actually a ghost riding in the body of Red Shoes, from The Lonely Prince. If you don't recognize the name, it's a Welsh writing of "Guinevere."
- Sunflower victory was going to spark a civil war and lead to a spinoff thing "In the Flower Kingdom" or something
- There is a lot more godawful poetry in various notebooks, which I suspect will be aired in future games
- Phaedrus is this Phaedrus
- In general, the main question of this game was whether Denmark was going to hold together as a country or fall apart, and under which conditions--which sort of government--it would continue. For example a game led by TolyK would have been theological democracy, Maren's Enlightened Monarchy, and yours... likely some variety of authoritarianist or despotic state, yes. One of the key points of the game is that the "good" and "evil" alignments were spread through town and scum, so that endings that seemed "good" or "bad" weren't so attached to teams so much as individual players. It's a truly political disagreement.
- If you haven't had the chance to check the original doc yet, you should... everyone has a "limit break" ;]

[Cheeetar]

Oh man. My limit break would've had the most awesome flavour in the world.

Re: Why the hell did that jerk lynch Jim Groovester? I was really uncertain, and not thinking too clearly prior to his claim, but the moment he claimed kingmaker was the sweetest I've ever had in Mafia. It was a fakeclaim I could see through instantly and I didn't even have to give myself away to call him on it and lynch him for it.

[Tiruin]

- Phaedrus is this Phaedrus

Bloody knew it! >:I

- Gwenhwyfar is actually a ghost riding in the body of Red Shoes, from The Lonely Prince. If you don't recognize the name, it's a Welsh writing of "Guinevere."

And again!
Though I noted this discovery as a passing thought u_u
Grr those times when I get references!

Who blocked me N1? 

It was SuperBlackCat being redirected by TolyK from his attempt on Caz. The random redirection is actually the main reason I stopped running the game in the first place--it took so much time to process nights ._.

D:
Everyone should've been leveled to my power. I has cats I:<

But really ._. Web's active enough to ask aid on this part :3

"limit breaks" ;]

I love you.

Aaaaanway, Vector? Could I volunteer as co-mod somewhere in the future?
I seriously promise it not to die C:
^{Yeah fear of judgement, I'm looking at you.}

[Cheeetar]

I absolutely love gameplay systems and flavour and helping with stuff, so I might (?) be able to help with co-modding in the far, far-away future! If only to do the boring action resolution stuff- I have much patience for tedium.

[Vector]

LOL! Two of my top players, lost to the Sea of Mod! But honestly, I might well consider it. It will be quite a while--I kind of just need to not think about it right now--but I have so many fun ideas that I really do want to run another game, likely at the beginning of next year when all of these applications will be done.

[Tiruin]

Man, if I knew who wrote that humor in that google doc I'd... :I

Kit-T -> Kit-10 -> CAT

It's killing me by laughter, amusement and appreciation. xD
But really. Considerations? YES!

[Vector]

Man, if I knew who wrote that humor in that google doc I'd... :I

LOL, the roles are 100% Wubbadobdobdabdoodle.

[Jim Groovester]

Spoiler: Ansgar Danielsen (Cheeetar) (click to show/hide)

(Auto) Judge: You select the King each Day.
(Auto) Jury: You start as the first King, as well.

Well, that was an unfortunate fakeclaim.

[Urist Imiknorris]

And the medium was your buddy.

[TolyK]

I loved my role in every single way. <3

Also, I remember the Jimbot role. Splendid xD