It was over 50 years ago near the end of the reign of the old King. In his time, political rule of the region had solidified like never before – there was peace, and good relations between the human nation and their neighbors, elves, dwarves, and more. The only political intrigue of the time, it seemed, was whether the King would abdicate in favor of his son in old age - he never did, but the crown passed down peacefully a few years later with the old King’s passing. Yet despite the seemingly good times, there was still trouble to be found somewhere, if you knew where to look. True, bandits were pretty well put out from trying anything near the major thoroughfares of the kingdom, and crime didn’t pay well in the outlands, small villages interspersed among the mountains or uninhabitable wetlands and the like. That still didn’t stop the Kingdom’s soldiers from their patrols and checking up on the peace, indeed, as the King grew older and cared little for more conquests some of the generals wanted to be extra vigilant.
So today a regiment of well-trained, eager, but, for a large part, inexperienced soldiers thought they marched against tangible threat, a serious objective their commanders had spoken of without any hint of joviality. Though some of the younger men had hardly seen real combat in these years of peace, they were prepared for it today, as there had been rumors of open rebellion in outlying lands. At the center of it all was a small upcountry village not too far from dwarven territories. This was the place where the generals of the army, the members of the King’s court, had all heard the intelligence about treachery and rebellion, such information secured by magical means no less. And it all seemed to fit, the village was home to a surprisingly diverse number of non-human races, traders from neighboring lands passed through often, and only recently had the territory ever been claimed as part of the grand Kingdom. The traditional religion and customs were still at the heart of these people’s everyday lives. So, It was determined the traitors would be rooted out and made an example of, just a minor blip in the history of these times, and so the soldiers in the late afternoon came openly to the valley.
The thing was, in all truthfulness the people in no way were in rebellion, had never even thought of it, and were shocked to have such a large contingent of armed fighters arrive at their lands. Though the people had been used to living in relative independence – they didn’t fear the King and didn’t have reason to, most had simply not cared. When pressed by the soldiers however, no man would admit guilt, nor sell out his neighbors who after all were not themselves guilty of treason either, the mood turned sour. The officers demanded harsher interrogations; the townspeople were defiant and arguments broke out. No one knows what started the fire, but well before the sun was down there was a lot of chaos breaking out.
The fire soon spread all across several acres of land, having already engulfed much the heart of the village. And finally, on the very outskirts those peculiar, oddly geometric dwellings, which the villagers knew were the proud handiwork of the aloof gnomish farmers, went up in flames.
The soldiers, in the end, had not found what they were looking for, and left in disgust, with few apologies to the innocent townspeople whose livelihood stood in ruins. Their reports would be indecisive and in truth the King and his court would not care about the matter, though a couple generals lost face. For the regular people involved this day was of far greater import though – there was great anguish, tears, and children shaken and wailing. But perhaps the most terrible look of all was on the face of a stout, middle-aged gnome who had witnessed the whole day’s events thing from the forest uphill.
Today
As soon as your group was together, you had to leave immediately, with the last blessings of the clerics and their wards that stood a chance of protecting you from more corrupt magic. The full details of what happened in the battle would be left to historians, you only knew of the incredible task that lay ahead. For you, the strongest, most trusted, most honorable, or most powerful individuals in this coalition of armies who could be spared, have been sent to hunt down the evil Gnomish wizard Atto Ngoogol and defeat him once and for all.
Rules:
Spoiler :
Firstly, normal Mafia game rules apply. Abide by forum rules, try your best and show good sportsmanship regarding the game so everyone can have fun. A summary of more specifics is as following:
1) All players are encouraged to be active and participate. At the very least, players must vote during the Day phase. A WoG, for those who do not know, is short for “Wrath of God” and is when a player is removed from the game by the GM for independent, external reasons, not gameplay reasons. Breaking other game or forum rules could result in a WoG but that’s unlikely I would hope. However - consecutive days without voting will result in a player being WoG’d, and replaced by a reserve player if possible.
2) The game will have alternating Day and Night phases. Day is 48 Hours, Night is 24 hours –these are estimates, not perfect, but I’ll try to warn you if updates don’t come around then. The times are set and won’t change for game-related circumstances, it would only be real-life or external concerns that could cause minor hiccups. (Living) Players MAY post in the game thread both at day, or at night.
3) Players may send private messages to each other – feel free to use the CFC PM system or other methods you desire. However, the following rules must be obeyed: Do NOT directly quote private messages from myself, the GM, under any circumstances, including your role PM, PMs about items, abilities, etc… Summarize the information in your own words if you must. You should also avoid directly quoting your fellow players as well from private messages (though quoting anything in the game thread is fine) without their consent – though if it’s something like a quicktopic where multiple players have access you know who you can quote and who you cannot. The short answer is: PARAPHRASE, do not quote, whenever possible or if you are at all unsure.
4) Dead players may not post on the public game thread, nor talk to still living players about the game. Living players should not talk nor solicit responses in the game thread, or privately message dead players.
Factions:
All players will belong to a faction. I will not specify the number or makeup of factions, but they are numerous, and all members of a faction share goals. Members of your faction are your teammates, not your enemies, and no, this isn’t a lie or trick by the GM, there really are no “infiltrators” on any faction, the faction you are with at the start of the game can be fully trusted as your allies.
With a player count of 26 players, there are N-2 factions, where N was an original ideal number between 6 and 15.
Victories:
All players have two Faction goals and a personal goal. The primary goal counts for 50% of Victory, the secondary goal for 30%, and the personal goal for 20%. For the majority of players, either your primary or secondary goal will include “Defeat the evil Gnomish wizard Atto Ngoogol.” Please strive to accomplish your victories as best as possible, within the game rules and forum rules and good sportsmanship. Victories are achieved regardless of survival, unless survival was one of your goals, but a player plays well and dies early they will not be and should not feel penalized, if their goals are still achieved in the end.
Names and Player Action
All actions and votes for a player must be done by their CHARACTER NAME. Do NOT vote, or send in orders, by a poster’s CFC name, they will NOT count.
Example: Earthling is the character Joe McFantasyPerson. You may nominate: Joe McFantasyPerson or send me an order at night to roleblock: Joe McFantasyPerson. nominate: Earthling, or roleblock: Earthling ARE NOT VALID.
The names of all characters will be listed in the OP, but not which CFC posters they are unless they die, (though there may be some clues players could work out as the game goes on, in particular through vote tallies or support vote so players should be cautious in considering their actions). Basically, your fellow players may decide to tell you who they are or decide not to and try to hide it.
Strength:
Characters will have a strength stat, which includes a base strength and an effective strength after modifiers are added, say from an item. Higher is always better, strength serves several purposes in the game such as influencing how a combat situation would be resolved. There may be other interesting attributes or qualities players will find of their characters as the game goes on.
Injuries:
Players may be injured during the course of the game, which generally does the following: prevents them from using abilities, prevents them from casting support votes, and their base strength is minimized to one for the duration of the injury. An injury will recover on its own without interference after two phases (day/night) from when it was received.
Abilities and Items
In this game, players may have abilities and items, though not all players are guaranteed to have both or either; factions may share some abilities or items as well. For any active ability, you must PM or otherwise clearly contact (say, on a QT) me, the GM, to use at the appropriate time (Day or Night). Some abilities or items are passive effects. Details on abilities and items will be given to players with their role PMs or for items when they acquire one.
Items may in general be given to other players or put up to vote if there are is no special consideration, as per standard rules. PM me and the item will be transferred to another player or put up to vote by the next update (this includes the Midday update if possible, I'll try to do so but can't guarantee it) if you wish to do so with any item(s) you have.
Special: Investigatory Abilities - no player has the ability to determine another player's faction, character name (as in, match your character name to your CFC name), or alignment (Good/Neutral/Evil) directly via an ability or item.
Nominations
What follows is equivalent to what would be a “lynch” in another Mafia game, however, in this game we do not have lynches, instead there are “nominations” for a champion. I must stress right now and immediately, do not gloss over this, this is NOT just a flavor thing, nominations are very different from lynches. If you only thoroughly read a single thing in the entire ruleset, please please please let it be this.
So, while you may in general think of this as equivalent to a regular Mafia game lynch, here are the details:
Each Day two players (this number may change as the game goes on) are “nominated” to lead the group forward against challenges they face, threats from the Dark wizard Ngoogol or elsewhere. Nominated players are not being voted to the noose from their fellow players, but chosen to fight external threats – this may yet be deadly, but do not just expect players to die like they would in a normal game’s “lynch.”
Each player gets a single vote for a nomination per number of nominations available, and may vote for any player. You may vote with vote: so-and-so or nominate: so-and-so or just bold so-and-so (but please see the above on names in general). Please do not edit votes in previous posts, make a new post and
Support votes also exist and are done in green; they still count as your vote, so a player can only make one vote, or one support vote for each nominee. If multiple people are nominated, you generally can't support more than one at a time. A support vote DOES NOT REMOVE nominations against another player. Instead, by supporting a nominated champion, the supporting player agrees to help that player fight and overcome obstacles before them. Players may also abstain, this does NOT count as “vote for no one to be nominated.” Regardless of the number of abstains, even on the very first day, the players with the two highest counts in nomination votes will be nominated. There will be an objective method for tiebreaking that should handle most cases but in some circumstances a tie could result in a coin flip.
Votes for items likewise follow a one-player, one-vote general principle. If a tie occurs, the item will come up to vote the next day.
There is also a final, likewise extremely important rule on nominations. Given the chaotic nature of magic both the land your foe put before you, it has been determined that the group should nominate a day’s champion as early as possible as threats may come out any time. Perhaps lingering magic wards and Ngoogol’s own exhaustion may prevent attacks at night, but at day it’s best to act with all due haste. So the rule is as follows:
Nominations will be tallied sometime on an hour (American Eastern time at :00 on an hour, or at any rate I’ll tell when “on the hour” corresponds to on the CFC clock, with something like “48 hours on the hour from this post”

I, the GM, will NOT tell you when this deadline is each day, except that it is random, no player can do anything to change it, and I will not be unfairly changing things as the game goes on either (As with any other random effects, I have a random number set already chosen that I could, for instance show to any bystander during the game, I’ll just use the next number off the set when the time comes). The actual game update will still come after 48 hours if I can manage it, or at any rate that’s when the day officially ends.
There is one exception – you can all know that for the first day, voting will last the full 48 hours.
So this may sound confusing, and you ask, what does this mean to you as a player? It means the following:
ANY AND EVERY NOMINATION/SUPPORT VOTE made in the first 36 hours of the day, after the morning update, is sure to count, unless the player later changes his/her vote. AFTER 36 hours, at any point on the hour, the votes may officially be tallied. Votes and vote changes after that WILL NOT BE COUNTED for the nomination tally (again, item votes are not affected by this rule). So, as a player, if you want to be sure that your vote is counted, vote in the first 36 hours. The evening update will not happen until after 48 hours, but at some point during that time voting may be closed, and if you vote afterwards, or change your vote, it may not be counted. Players are still certainly welcome to not vote, wait until the “last minute” to vote or change their votes and so on, that’s a valid strategy, just be aware of the dangers of playing with magics beyond your kin.
Example: One day, Charlie has three votes for him, Alice has four votes for her and Bob has three, after 36 hours have gone by. It’s still day, players can keep posting, and changing their votes and so on. It turns out this day, after 5 more hours, is when the votes are tallied, but the players don’t know that. So any player who changes their vote between 36-41 hours would have that counted, any changes after 41 hours actually wouldn’t count, and so the tally and writeup I will make at the end of the day would not reflect that. But regardless, if, say, David wanted Bob nominated he would be smart not to wait until the very end of the day, like 47 hours in, before voting – or else run the large risk that vote would not count.
Magic System
Players will have the opportunity to solve puzzles, riddles, or something similar during the daytime, providing a small strength boost or penalty if they are nominated or involved in any conflict during the day. To our mundane, human world such challenges for the mind are the closest we can get to represent overcoming some magical challenge, counterspell, or so on which gives a benefit to your character if you succeed, or penalty if you fail. Puzzles will be provided at the midday update, so a player who wishes to solve the day’s puzzle must say so beforehand, and will be committed to doing so – if you change your mind, don’t do it or give a wrong answer, you will suffer the penalty.
So, state in bold that you "want to solve a puzzle" BEFORE midday to be eligible that day. Other players may help (or hinder) players to solve a challenge even if their character will not be giving an answer. Any lengthy discussion of a puzzle that would take up a lot of space in the game thread, it would be nice to spoiler to not create excessive clutter, though lively and exciting discussion of the puzzles I hope will be part of the fun.
Character Creation
All players should participate in the character creation process. However, players who do not will still be (grudgingly

Firstly, Do NOT share with other players your plans for character creation before the game, that includes this thread. When you are satisfied with your character, or if you must do so in an iterative process, PM me the details and stats you choose below.
During the game, you may tell people about yourself as a character, your name or alignment or whatever. However, you are still forbidden to discuss character creation mechanics – you can’t say “I put a 3 in strength during character creation and this is what I got” or “I asked for an evil character but didn’t go into specifics so Earthling gave me this character.” Talk to me if you have any questions or other circumstances to consider.
Absolutely Mandatory: Your Character’s Name
Absolutely Mandatory: You have 4, note the final value here is FOUR points to spend on attributes for your character.
The categories are:
Strength, Ability, Item, Other.
You may put 0-4 points in Strength or Ability, 2-4 points in Item, and 0-1 points on Other. In the broadest sense, this influences what your character would have in terms of regular Mafia game concepts – more points in strength means a directly higher starting strength stat, more points in ability means a more powerful ability, or points in Item to ensure you get an item. Put a point in “other” to get something that may be all around more interesting, powerful, useful, or so on with your character, rather than a standard-ish role you might expect is close to any other Mafia role. Example: let’s say some player may wind up with a good chance of being a roleblocker, a common mafia game role. A player who puts 3 points in “ability” could just get a solid roleblock ability, and that’s it. A player with 2 points in ability and 1 point in other could get something more complicated/interesting.
Keep in mind everyone will be on a faction with some number of allies. However, you will not know or coordinate with your allies during character creation. But there are reasons to consider each choice and how you want to play – if you opt for a powerful item for instance it means that even if you get into trouble it may yet help your allies. Likewise, consider drawbacks: like if you have too low strength and you could be in danger of being easily wiped out. Ultimately feel free to stat out your character how you like given background, or goals you would hope to accomplish, or how you want to play the game, and so on.
Important/Mandatory: Your preference for your character’s alignment, in terms of Good/Neutral/Evil.
Recommended: Your character’s race (like elf or dwarf or orc or whatever you want, within reason), nationality, religion, or such important details
Recommended/easy: Your Character’s favorite food, color, and animal, plus equivalent fun fluff details, but I’d like those to start.
Recommended/a little work but c’mon. A couple paragraphs of backstory. Here, I think I’ve said this in some other posts and may quote from them in the future, the idea is the following – we have a generic fantasy setting, so feel free to come up with interesting stories, it will make things more interesting for all players hopefully.
Signups ARE OPEN.
Frequently Asked Questions moved to next post (character limit

edit: please don't vote in the poll till after the conclusion of the game thread
