Our First Gameboard: "The Author's Banquet"

Gameboards
#1

Prologue

“The honor of your presence is requested at Miss Hachijo’s Third Series book release party for cocktails and dining.”

You have received an invitation to a banquet on a private island. Hachijo, an author you’ve had more than a few exchanges with, wants to celebrate the release of the first book in her new series! Her first series are regarded as a masterpiece of the time. Some even regard it as a national treasure. Now she’s onto her third series!

You arrive at the island along with several other guests.

A maid greets you all in place of Hachijo, “Welcome to the island!” she says in a composed yet enthusiastic tone. “Miss Hachijo has been expecting you all. I’m Shannon, the maid. Please, right this way to the mansion.”

Among the guests are yourselves and:

  • Battler, who had started coauthoring with Hachijo near the end of her second series of books.
  • Rosa, Hachijo’s sister. She can be overbearing at times, and is especially strict with her daughter, Maria.
  • Maria, Rosa’s young and childish daughter; Hachijo’s niece. She’s very attached to her mother.

Once everybody is inside the mansion, Hachijo makes a brief appearance, welcoming you personally, then doing the same for the rest of the guests.

“Maria! I haven’t seen you since you were this big, you know? Not that there’s much of a difference now,” she jests the small child. “Uuuuu” Maria sounds in discomfort.

Rosa whispers harshly at Maria, then asks Hachijo not to make fun of her too much in a slightly irritated tone. Hachijo laughs it off, implying Rosa’s request had been denied before it was even made.

“I’ve still got some work to do, so I’ll be in my office for now,” Hachijo says. “Dinner will be ready at 18:00, one hour from now, please make yourselves at home until then!” With that she steps away.

From what she said, that puts the time at roughly 17:00.

The maid, Shannon, excuses herself, then disappears into one of the halls. She gives off a slight impression of shyness as she walks away.

Shortly thereafter, Battler takes Maria outside to play.

“It’s getting dark and it looks like it’ll rain soon, but… It would be a shame not to play at times like these! Right, Maria?”

Rosa looks like she’s irritated. “Don’t get your dress dirty,” she allows Maria.

Battler and Maria return together, roughly half-an-hour later. During this time some of the guests have left to explore. Battler, noticing this, decides to wander off somewhere as well. Maria, who had parted from Battler immediately upon walking inside, is unphased by this. Instead, she runs off to her mother, Rosa.

About twenty minutes pass, during which rain begins to fall heavily, and several guests return. The last among them to return is Battler. Dinner should be soon… Another five or so minutes pass, then the maid informs everybody that dinner is just about ready.

The guests enter the dining room, relieved. This room is notably cleaner than the other rooms.

Noticing that she isn’t there, one of the guests ask “Shannon, where is Hachijo?” Flustered by the sudden question, she responds anxiously “She’ll be down soon,” before muttering under her breath in a whisper “I think.”

Looking out of the window you see nothing but the island veiled in darkness, and the night sky. Rain hits the windows harder and harder. It seems a storm is coming in.

“I knew there would be a storm, but it’s still a bit depressing” states one of the guests, trying to distract them from their hunger. It’s supposed to be a banquet for Hachijo’s new book series. Shouldn’t she be down here by now?

The rain starts falling harder and harder. Lightning and thunder rolling in. Loud roars from the heavens fill the spacious mansion. Boom, Boom, Boom. The storm continues. Boom, Boom, Boom. The sky continues to speak. Then, one sound unlike the others is heard, frightening the guests. It’s closer than all the others, and sounds much different. “That… wasn’t thunder.”

Quickly shuffling from their seats, several of the guests rush to investigate. As they pass by a window, lightning strikes revealing a silhouette of a tree, and… something in it.

Rushing outside you find a person, stuck in the tree. Drip, drip, drip. Warm liquid falls from the tree. No, from the person in the tree… It’s Hachijo. It’s difficult to tell where the blood is coming from in this darkness.

Noticing that one of her arms is dangling from the branches, one of the guests reach for it and… takes her pulse. They shake their head, silently informing everybody of the situation. Another guest checks her pulse in disbelief, only to further confirm that she’s no longer alive.

“We should get her out of the tree,” someone suggests, even stepping forward to do so. “No,” another voice says. “This is a crime scene.” The voice belongs to Battler.

Registered Players (12/12)

  • Bowiie
  • HeliosAlpha
  • Karifean
  • ctom42
  • RedEspeon
  • tanasinn
  • ghagler
  • EisenKoubu
  • StarTurner
  • Aulin
  • Funyarinpa
  • Pepe

Player Teams

Relevant Posts

9 Likes
Introduce Yourself!
#2

The stage is set for our very first Gameboard here on Rokkenjima. Please welcome your Game Master, @NotKyon. I, Aspirety, am acting as overseer, supervising the gameboard and acting only when required of me. We’ll be borrowing some of the mechanics established in Umineko for this Gameboard, but this is very much Game Master NotKyon’s original creation. Knowledge of Umineko’s story is not required to participate in this Gameboard.

The format for this Gameboard is a murder mystery with multiple challengers. The goal of the challengers is to identify the culprit or culprits responsible for this murder and explain how they were able to commit the crime. However, the players of this game are not omniscient observers. Upon entering the Gameboard, each player will be granted a Piece, or character to represent them on the gameboard, and to act as their avatar. These pieces are the up until now nameless ‘guests’ Game Master NotKyon has referred to in the prologue.

NotKyon will post in this topic as a narrator describing events as they happen, and the players will be able to post in response, acting as their ascribed Piece. At the time each player joins the Gameboard, they will be provided all relevant information and knowledge required to act as their Piece on the Gameboard. In other words, each player will know everything that their character knows, everything they’ve seen and done during the events of the Gameboard, and any other relevant information required to act as their Piece. Of course, in the interests of preserving sanity, irrelevant information will be omitted.

The bulk of this Gameboard will involve the players acting as their Pieces, investigating the crime by asking other characters questions in order to gain information. All non-player characters will be controlled by Game Master NotKyon. This game will have a human-side focus and should be completely solvable without any sort of meta aid, but players are permitted to request the red truth in case they have any uncertainties they wish to see resolved. That said, the blue truth is not in effect for this Gameboard, so Game Master NotKyon reserves the right to refuse any requests for the red without providing a reason. I Aspirety am also permitted to use the red, but will only do so in exceptional circumstances which require me to do so. Players can choose to play the game through private messages at their discretion, but any public actions (actions the player is aware are visible to other players) must be conducted in this forum topic.

The characters appearing on this Gameboard may resemble characters you’re familiar with, but they are merely serving as actors for us. There will be no need to draw on your past experiences with them to aid you on this Gameboard; please act as if you are meeting them for the first time.

The Gameboard is structured in such a way as to accommodate a variable number of challengers, but we request that all interested parties express their interest in joining our Gameboard by the 5th of April. Additional challengers requesting to be added after this date will be considered, but we would like to have a determined pool of challengers by the 5th of April so we can commence our game. Non-players are permitted to observe the game and post commentary, but they will have no direct influence on the Gameboard itself. We ask that all non-players refrain from participating in the process of deduction in their posts; if you wish to solve the mystery, then please join the Gameboard as a player instead.

Who will you trust, and who will you doubt? Will you work together with your fellow players, or seek the glory of solving the mystery by your own hands? How you play is up to you.

6 Likes
#3

So if we want a piece I assume we post here? Because I for sure want in on this sounds like a really cool idea. Looking forward to it.

2 Likes
#4

Yup! Anyone interested can post here or send a PM my way. I’ll maintain a list of players at the top.

I’ll add you now~

#5

I might get swamped by school, but I’ll try.

2 Likes
#6

Well I’m definitely participating! This sounds like fun.

2 Likes
#7

I’ve wanted to run something like this for a long time, but have never had the time to really plan it out (plus I run and participate in a lot of other roleplaying games). This seems like fun, count me in.

1 Like
#8

Aw hell yah. This seems like so much fun. Count me in

1 Like
#9

That’s a lot of interest already! Did you have a player cap in mind, @NotKyon?

#10

Alright, I’ve added you all to the list as well as @tanasinn who expressed their interest in Discord.

Anything works, but to keep the workload low enough, a player cap of 12 sounds about right.

1 Like
#11

This sounds fun! I’ll gladly take a spot.

1 Like
#12

This looks really interesting. I’m not terribly good at mysteries (I used to read juvenile mystery novels back in sixth grade, and I didn’t have the deductive brainpower to solve it. So I always looked at the back of the book for the answer ^_^; ), but it looks like there’s plenty of room. I’ll give it a try if permitted. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#13

Added you guys in! :slight_smile:

1 Like
#14

How active would I have to be to participate? I’m interested, but I’m not sure if I’d be best suited, it might be better for me to just observe…

#15

Some roles require more activity than others. Once we get started I’ll be asking everybody how much of an investment they’re willing to make in the game and account for that per player.

So, if you’d like to participate in a limited capacity that would be perfectly fine! Likewise with just observing instead.

#16

I’d certainly like to participate, it’s not like I won’t be able to, I just live in Australia, so if time zones aren’t really that important I’m all in!

1 Like
#17

Alright, adding you in!

Timezones won’t really be that problematic. I’m planning to just advance once everybody’s made a move. If somebody is away for several days I might have to make an automated move for them, but that aside…

2 Likes
#18

Good to hear, and that makes sense. I’ll be eagerly awaiting the 5th.

#19

This sounds legendary. I’m game!

cue Umineko door opening SFX

2 Likes
#20

Well, I’ve thought about it and decided that I would also be willing to participate in this game board (and hey looks like I’m getting the last slot!)

I do hope this ends up becoming less of a guessing game and more of a genuine game of logic and induction rather than deduction :stuck_out_tongue: But that’s just my personal bias speaking!

2 Likes