Night Six
It takes only moments for Olivia to track down baby Susie. She screeches at the top of her lungs from where she is cradled in the arms of a monkey.
?Susie!?
The shout startles the monkey and he disappears across the rooftops of the city. Olivia drops down into the dirt. Her once pristine cornflower blue suit now stained with blood and filth. She sobs there, on the ground, realising that it?s over.
?What?s the matter with you??
Olivia?s hands tighten into fists when she looks up to see Noelle. She works at the tavern opposite the late Percival?s little house. Whenever they had gone in there she would spend the entire time flirting with Vern. And he had spent much of it looking down her dress.
?My parents are dead. Vern is hurt. And the spawn of Satan has just be stolen by a monkey.?
?Vernon?s hurt?? Noelle?s temper changes at once. Her eyes scan the streets until she locates his body, still lying unconscious in the alleyway next to Gus? corpse.
The Londoner growls and jumps to her feet. ?Leave him alone!?
?Oh please, do you really think that a sophisticated man like him is interested in a child like you?? Noelle flips her hair. ?Oh don?t look so shocked. You?re so transparent.?
Olivia kicks a dustbin and stomps away. Quentin had gone in the direction of the clock tower.
An explosion causes the ground to tremble. The clock tower bursts into flames and the structure caves in on itself. Olivia ducks and covers her head. When she opens her eyes all of the surrounding buildings are on fire.
Out of the corner of her eye she spies it - Quentin, holding baby Susie. He snickers and vanishes in a cloud of smoke.
A chorus of cries catches her attention. In an alleyway, numerous cages hold a variety of exotic animals. She undoes the bolts on each one, allowing them to flee from the flames. The only one not to flee is a llama. Putting years of equestrian training to the test, she mounts the creatures back. It at once sets into motion, it?s movements manic, but somehow Olivia is able to guide her.
The llama takes her to a bunker on the outskirts of the city. A man stands outside reading a newspaper.
?Where is the magician??
The man looks her over and then smiles, tossing down the paper.
?You? you are stunning.? Ren? walks in a small circle around her. ?Girls in Luxembourg do not dress like this.?
Olivia bites her lip. ?You know I?m??
Her words are cut off as she gets a closer look at Ren?. What looks to be black trousers on first glance appears to be a long skirt. His long eyelashes have been accentuated with mascara, and his lips tinted are red. It takes Olivia a moment to realise that he isn?t wearing lipstick.
Ren? crumples to the ground, his words inaudible over the gurgling of blood filling his throat. Behind him, Quentin stands with baby Susie in arm. She?s red in the face and wailing like a banshee.
?I told you to go home, little girl.? Quentin puts the barrel of the gun to the baby?s head and pulls. Susie?s cries silence at once. Her head falls slack on her neck. The magician throws the infant to the floor. ?There, now you have nothing in Caxnival worth living for.?
Olivia vomits, barely managing to aim it away from the contortionist at her feet. His face twists in horror as he takes his final breath.
?There?s still Vern.?
Quentin snorts. ?I killed Vernon Luckette and his wench.?
Another gunshot sounds. The llama lets out a whine of pain and collapses in the dirt.
Olivia falls to her knees. Her mother is dead. Her father is dead. The man she loves is dead. And this city is going down in flames.
When she looks up once more, Quentin is staring down the barrel of the gun.
?Sweet dreams, Olivia.?
Locket aka.
Ren? the Contortionist (Unaware Miller).
Ren? the Contortionist (Unaware Miller)
You were into the performance arts long before your arrival in Caxnival. After a particularly humiliating performance in Paris, that made you the laughing stock throughout the whole of France, you fled across the English Channel and rode the train to this little haven in the countryside where you intend to lay low for a while.
You have no abilities beyond your voice and your vote - so make them count!
Unbeknowst to you, your status as an illegal immigrant in the United Kingdom means that you will return mafia-aligned to inspection.
Game Over
The town is no longer capable of winning.
The safe haven of Caxnival has been looted and destroyed.
The cannibals have won.
The remaining players roles were:
amazonevan19 aka.
Noelle the Tavern Wench (Townie)
Noelle the Tavern Wench (Townie)
You have a reputation for being a bit of a tart, but what?s wrong with knocking boots with strangers in the back room? Nothing, that?s what! Recently you?ve eyes for the mysterious gentleman, Vernon Luckette, who has just arrived in town.
You have no abilities beyond your voice and your vote - so make them count!
Your win objective is to rid the town of all non-town aligned players. You win when there are no threats remaining against the town.
Trundle aka.
Viki the Llama (Townie)
Viki the Llama (Townie)
You are one of the inhabitants in the Caxnival Children?s Petting Zoo! You are fluffy and adorable! What else is there really to say?
You have no abilities beyond your voice and your vote - so make them count!
Your win objective is to rid the town of all non-town aligned players. You win when there are no threats remaining against the town.
Kirbystarship aka.
Charlie the Monkey (Framer)
Charlie the Monkey (Framer)
Locked in your cage, night after night, people consider you to be unintelligent. But you understand their words and know that even when they are speaking in kind voices they are insulting you. While you play their games on stage, swinging around from the bars and obeying commands, you spend the nights staring at the bars planning your revenge. No one knows that you know how to manipulate the lock to let you escape, allowing you to visit one player a night and leave incriminating evidence outside of their doors.
Each night you may PM the host the name of another player. If you use this action on a town-player they will return mafia-aligned to inspection. If you use this action on one of your teammates then they will return town-aligned to inspection. You cannot select the same person two nights in a row.
Your win objective is to equal or outnumber the town. If there are any threats remaining once you accomplish this you must also take them out before you?re declared the winner.
Your mafia chat is located here: [omitted].
Night Two was so insane that oath2order has kindly made a graphic depicting the night actions. This game could have played out very differently otherwise.
Set-Up
This game was designed to promote analysis, strategising, and teamwork. A custom theme was designed to encourage users to analyse one another rather than trying to analyse the theme to determine whether role names were town or mafia. The set-up of the mafia team and how their kills worked was to encourage players to think about the good of the team rather than self-preservation. And the purpose of the mafia tree stump was for my own personal amusement.
The Theme
The original Caxnival was a six-part television screenplay I wrote over 2015-2016 for university. I had intended to pitch it to the BBC but I was never satisfied enough with it. It focused on a city-wide game with several phases, orchestrated by Mayor Carroll, with a large cash prize at the end that Vernon and Olivia desperately needed. If there is any interest I could adapt Season 2 into a game as well.
The Thornton family, Vernon Luckette, Mayor Carroll, Alice, and Noelle are the only characters from the original series that were carried over to this game. The only other character not unique to this game was Ren?. He?s the protagonist of a novel I?ve been working on since 2013 titled
Last Train Home. The Caxnival he called home was a French travelling circus intended for 18+ audiences set in the current century.
The word ?Caxnival? is meaningless. If you Googled this word you likely came across a song from nine years ago called
PARASITE by Koki Tanaka. Back when this song first came out there was debate on the interpretation of the word ?caxnival?. I have never been able to get the similarity of the words carnival and cannibal out of my head since ? and thus the cannibal carnival of Caxnival came to be.
I always share music when I end my games, but Johnny?s Entertainment music is a pain to find online, so instead I present you with the song that inspired the atmosphere of the original series:
Dollstown by AlterRed:
Thanks for playing!
