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INFORMATION | FAQ | RULES
✖ the introduction
✖ about the setting
✖ about the host
✖ about the game
✖ about the mysteries
✖ faq
✖ activity requirements
✖ rules
You wake in a large, barren room. Everywhere you look, you're surrounded by cardboard boxes. Some are empty and lying on their side, some have been clawed and shredded, but most are sitting, stacked all along the floor, sealed with thick packing tape. Try as you might, you can't get the packing tape to open. Between the large boxes and the torn cardboard, there's very little empty floor space.
There's nothing else of interest in this room. The walls are a dull beige; the carpets a muted grey brown shag. You're alone, and you have no memory whatsoever of the previous 24 hours.
Still, you aren't trapped in here. Head out the open doorway, and you'll find yourself in a winding hallway. The hallway is similarly stacked with boxes, although most of these are open and empty. All along the hallway are other doors to other box stacked rooms. In each room, someone else has woken up just like you.
At the end of the hallway is one final doorway. Inside, you'll find a large, open room; there are still boxes everywhere, but also plenty of floor space. Packed against the wall are a long series of tall, locked filing cabinets. Most of them are unlabeled, but among the ones that aren't is a filing cabinet that bears your name.
You've arrived...somewhere. For now, it's a large empty space entirely populated by cardboard boxes and filing cabinets. But that isn't all that necessarily will be here. As you'll find, your host is pretty amenable to suggestions. As the game develops, you may find that the space you occupy will develop as well as you need it to.
You're not sure why you've come here, but while you're here, there's plenty for you to do. Still, all of you have something in common: you've lost something important, you don't remember the past 24 hours, and many of you are harboring some sort of guilt or regret.
Shortly after arriving, you're sure to meet the host; the only living creature besides you new arrivals you'll find in this area. The host looks like a perfectly ordinary housecat. It is pure black with a small white patch of fur on its chest. It also talks.
The cat seems to live here, and also doesn't seem to know exactly why you're here. But you see all of those boxes? All of the boxes are filled with information about people, about tragedies, and about crime. The cat's job is to look through the information in the boxes and make decisions. So long as you don't mind giving it a hand with this, it seems perfectly content to help you right back.
In fact, the cat seems perfectly pleasant, and will happily answer your questions and take suggestions. That doesn't mean it's your friend. If there's something you want from it, or something you need, you'll need to provide something else in return.
This game is a murder mystery game with gameplay elements borrowed from party games like Mafia and elements borrowed from the murder mystery genre. Familiarity is not necessary to play or even an advantage. There are two parts to the game - a traditional mafia game part, and a mystery solving part.
The structure of the mafia game will be similar to most mafia games. At the beginning of the game, a small subset of players will be chosen as culprits. The culprits will meet at night and decide on a player to kill. The next day, that player will turn up dead. During the day, the group as a whole can meet and will have the option to vote to execute a player. The goal of the group will be to execute the culprits and win the game.
In this game, players will be informed up front of how the 'culprits' work - at night, the culprits are possessed by malevolent forces who are determined to kill. During the day, the 'culprits' do not remember their night meetings, and are not possessed. Therefore, no player in the game knows whether he or she is truly an innocent player or if they are one of the culprits. Still, players will be informed that the culprits cannot be saved. If the culprit succeeds the possession will become permanent, so the possessed player is already lost.
Players are not required to vote every day; in this game, a 'no one' vote is perfectly valid. However, if you do not ever execute a culprit, eventually their numbers will overtake yours and it will be impossible to survive against them.
So how are players expected to learn the identities of the culprits? Unlike past mafia games, there are no investigative roles and no protective roles. Instead, you will receive clues to the identities of the killers in exchange for helping the cat with its caseload.
There is something unique about the murders here - each round, the death that occurs mirrors a death from one of the cat's files. Using the information from the files, your characters need to try and solve that old case.
The cat will reward your theory. Even if not correct, if you advance a plausible theory about an aspect of the death, then the cat will give you additional information.
A typical mystery, then, would work once the body is discovered. You might work to determine the cause of death. The cat would then give you more information to create a more accurate theory about the cause, or the cat would give you more information about the victim, or direct you to information about possible suspects.
Your ultimate goal is to help the cat assign blame. There is, in each case, a person to blame for the tragedy that occurred. There may even be more than one person to blame, but ultimately, the cat is looking for a single truly guilty party. Advance a theory that allocates blame, and you will receive information to help you.
Additionally, players will be rewarded generally for participation. The cat may give special help or protection to the most active players, and the least active players are more likely to become targets at night. When there is, generally, a high amount of work and cooperation between players, the cat will be more amenable to suggestions and dispersing clues and information. If there is low participation, the cat will probably insist everyone get to work before it will do any more.
Of course, as you come to solve these cases the cat gives you, you may start to notice something about them that's a little strange...
So what's this about 'guilt'?
In this game, most or all of the characters who come have some sort of guilt or regret in their past. This isn't an absolute requirement - if your character has a perfectly clean conscience and you still want to play them, that's fine. It is, however, strongly encouraged.
Your character's guilt can be something totally deserved or completely baseless; what matters most is how they feel. We encourage you to use something of significant importance to your character. If your character has already resolved these feelings in canon, we encourage you to take away their memories of the resolution.
Can my character keep their powers and/or stuff?
For powers, probably. We'll only be nerfing things that have a chance to be gamebreaking, and we'd rather just work with you on it if we can. For items, if it's something they would almost always be carrying around with them, they can keep it. Otherwise, it isn't here.
If you're unsure about something, you can ask the mods on this page, via PM or plurk, or just include it in the app.
I want to play! How can I do that?
You may fill out an application here as soon as they open. This game is not invite only, but if we do hit a character cap, the mods may give priority to certain apps based on the mods' knowledge of activity in past games.
How big is this game? Can I app more than one characters?
There will be a cap at about 30 characters. For the time being we will not be allowing multiple characters, but if we're short of our cap we may allow a few.
There will also be a canon cap. We will only allow 5 characters from each canon.
What is the pacing of the game?
OOCly, each murder and investigation will take place over the course of a week. The culprits will have about two days to discuss and decide on a victim, and then the players will have several days to investigate.
This means a typical schedule will probably be: Culprits deliberate from Sunday evening to Tuesday evening. A body is discovered Tuesday evening. Votes for execution are due early evening on Sunday. There will also be a general mingle on Monday and Tuesday, so they game won't have any down periods where non-culprits can't participate.
In general, the bulk of activity will probably take place weekday evenings and on weekends. It isn't essential you be able to tag every day, but you should be prepared to be able to be involved at least a few days per week.
What about timezones?
The mods operate on EDT, and the game will be scheduled so the bulk of activity occurs in the evening eastern time. We'll try in our scheduling to be considerate both of lateness on the east coast and also work hours on the west coast.
If you're living outside North America, you should still be able to participate, but you may be at risk to miss the bulk of activity. If you have a concern, please contacts the mods.
How long will the game last?
Most likely, 8 - 10 weeks.
What if I need to drop halfway through?
Please contact us as soon as possible and let us know so we can minimize the impact on the game. However, if you drop, you will be negatively impacting the other players. We understand sometimes things come up that were impossible to anticipate, and we'll work with you in those situations. However, if there is a reason you would have to drop that you can foresee now, this game probably isn't for you.
Can I app a CRAU?
CRAUs (characters who have memories from previous games they've been played at) are allowed! Just make a note of it in your app.
CRAUs from past short term mystery games (
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huntersgame, murdermanor, dangan ronpa games, mafia games, etc.) are another story. Your character can be a CRAU, but upon arriving here, their memories of the last game will be wiped. They may eventually get those memories back, but they won't have them at the outset. If you wanted your guilt/regret to be something from one of those games, please just talk to us and we may let you get around this.Can I app a character who isn't human?
Humanoid characters are fine, and you don't have to do anything to humanize them.
If a character is a talking animal, or some other kind of non-human creature, please send a message to the mods. We just want to be sure the character will work thematically within the game.
Can I app an OC or a canon OC?
Please ask the mods. We'll discuss it based on the character and how much info you have about them.
We're not going to be keeping tabs on activity, although if someone is frequently inactive, we may speak to them. However, our expectations are that everyone will be tagging regularly during the week (at least be involved several days out of the week).
However, anyone who goes an entire week's trial without tagging in the game will be idled, unless you either speak to us in advance or were not available that week because of an emergency. If you need to take a week off, just get in touch and let us know!
Additionally, all characters will be required to vote! ICly characters can choose not to vote, but OOCly we would like you to vote. Anyone who fails to vote twice will be idled from the game.
If your character is killed, idled, or made a target due to inactivity, and the reason you were inactive was a serious emergency and there was no way to let us know beforehand, please tell us right away and we'll help out. The activity requirements are not meant to punish anyone for circumstances outside their control. However, idling out without reason is serious and we reserve the right to ban anyone who does idle from future games.
1) Your character can, and likely will, die. This is something you must agree on as a possibility by playing this game. But not to worry- the dead will still be able to watch the game unfold and comment from the graveyard.
2) Characters will be capped at 30 characters overall, and 5 per canon.
3) IC knowledge =/= OOC knowledge. Don't take advantage of knowledge you have outside the game of plots and roles to help your character in the game.
4) While it's not absolutely required, we really suggest you keep your character's role and plot involvement secret from other players. Trust us, it's much more fun that way.
5) We expect you to be active; inactivity can make the game a lot less fun for the other players. If something unanticipated comes up that affects your ability to be present, please let us know. We're happy to try and help, but we can't do much if we don't know in advance.
6) If any issues arise, please contact us through PM - other than that, please just have fun!