Mafia: Chaos Caverns

***Mafia: Chaos Caverns*** is the eighteenth season of *The Mafia Series*.

As the name suggests, there was plenty of chaos all around in this game. With a special twist and a mafia legend returning for the first time since All-Stars, this game featured some interesting moves on the end of the town and the 3rd party. Despite the mafia team not being too active or influential, the mafia managed to survive until the final six, where they were ultimately eliminated when even the 3rd party could not save them.

This game lasted from August 31, 2021 up to September 14, 2021. While the game had several active players, the game was primarily pulled by them. As usual, a group of more inactive players reached the end, but the game still moved on at a steady pace and lasted a normal two weeks.

# ***Roles & Twists***

**Twists**
* **Strike System:** For the first time, a strike system was established in the game. During a night cycle, each player must use the confirm command whether they have an action or not. Players must vote during day cycles to avoid a self-vote. In addition, if a player does not perform the confirm command (with any necessary action) or the vote command, they will lose a strike. Three strikes and the player will not be allowed to participate in the next sign-up game.
* **Grid Hunt:** At the beginning of the game, players were presented with a 15x15 grid. Once every day (each day resetting at the results announcements), players could search one spot on the grid. Each spot either contained nothing, a pickaxe, or a word. 20 pickaxes were available, while there were 10 words necessary to collect.
	+ **Pickaxes:** Once a player collected a pickaxe (or was gifted one by the blacksmith), they could use a special command giving them one of six results:
		- **Healing Kit:** The holder can use this at any time during the night on any other player to heal that player for the night of *all* kills. They can use this on themself.
		- **Vote Steal:** The holder, up until the vote up and closest to the final five, can use this advantage to steal a vote from another player and vote twice.
		- **Crystal Ball:** The holder would be given the opportunity to allow a dead player to vote. However, no living player (aside from the psychic) would have contact with this selected dead player.
		- **Cavern Sickness:** With this disadvantage, until the conclusion of the next vote, the holder can only say "*cough*" and "*gag*" in the town and all group chats.
		- **Terrifying Monster Sighting:** If a player obtains this disadvantage, they can no longer use the command to enter the caverns from the pickaxe.
		- **Nothing**
	+ **Word Scramble:** There were ten words hidden on ten different spaces: "You have earned the ability to decide your own fate." It is unrevealed what someone would have won if they had unscrambled all these words into the sentence.

# ***Contestants***

\*Ry previously participated in the previous season, but he joined mid-way through that game. So his record from the game was not recorded.

# ***Game Summary***

*Written by **Eevee**.*

The game began with many double role claims, specifically Aster and Cam claiming to be the judge, Emmi, Ella, and Ry claiming to be commoners, and Life and Brainz claiming to be nobles. The mafia first attempted to kill Nemo, but luckily, Nemo was healed by Finn, the healer! Nemo planned to perform a tied vote between Cam and Aster with the hope of the vote tying and the actual judge breaking the tie in their favor. Unfortunately, this plan failed because of Piper, the witch, and Ry, the mafia, voting out **Aster** instead of Cam. The town’s actual judge had just been voted out.

Next, the mafia went with the simple decision of attempting to kill **Nemo** again, which succeeded this time. The townpeople made the easy decision of targeting Cam, the second judge claim, next. **Cam** was executed in an unanimous vote, other than Hades self-voting. **Finn** was killed by the mafia next for being the powerful healer role. Around this time, Ella realized that the votes weren’t adding up to there being two nobles and two lawyers, which made Brainz and Life, the nobles, the next targets. Life was supposed to be the one to go, but due to some miscommunication, **Brainz** was voted out 9-7-1 over Life and Jelk respectively. Brainz and Life were actually both the nobles, and the votes were only not adding up because Avtron had abstained from voting in the previous trial.

**Malik** was killed next because the mafia wanted to cut off the line of connection with the dead participants. Boomer, one of the three commoner claims, seemed to be brought under fire next. Behind the scenes, players like Ella and Harp were starting to believe Jelk was suspicious for being one of the two detective claims and for defending Life in the previous vote. **Jelk** was blindsided 7-4-1 over Boomer, with Jelk and Life’s votes being blocked. The townspeople had just voted out their first mafia member, the corrupted detective!

**Boomer** dropped out next because of some personal issues, and **Emmi**, a witch, was killed by the mafia, bringing the total players left to 10. Hades, claiming to be an apprentice, was targeted for making it this far into the game, while Nemo, the other apprentice claim, was killed at the very beginning. Hades and Ry staged a fight in town where Hades was calling Ry suspicious, which no one believed. In a tight 6-4 vote over Swaggy, **Hades** was voted out. The townspeople had just voted out the accomplice, leaving the mafia with one member left.

**Ella** was killed by the mafia next for being a major reason that both Jelk and Hades were voted out. This seemed like an easy vote for Ry for everyone, and Ry actually initially received the majority of the votes. Piper, knowing that if Ry, a likely mafia member, was voted out, she couldn’t win the game, decided to campaign against Amber. Ella had earlier lied about having the blacksmith shield to make sure the mafia wouldn’t kill her, which failed. Piper used this to her advantage to make Amber, the blacksmith, look suspicious. Piper’s ruse succeeded and **Amber** was voted out 5-4 with the lawyers blocking two votes for Ry and with Piper using her steal-a-vote advantage on Amber.

**Harp** was killed by the mafia next for being a confirmed lawyer. Piper and Ry’s only hope at winning was for Lance, the sheriff, to not confirm himself as sheriff by not interrogating anyone. Unfortunately for them, Lance showed up at the perfect time and interrogated Harp. **Ry** was then voted out in a 5-1 vote, giving the win to the villagers for the first time in three games! The winning survivors were **Avtron, Lance, Life, and Swaggy**!

# ***Voting History***

An underlined vote represents a penalty vote.
A strike-through vote represents a vote blocked by the lawyer or gambler.
An *italicized strike-through* vote represents a vote blocked by the monarch.

# ***Awards***

Because this season had more than ten players and three rounds of executions, awards were handed out at the end of the game. They were given to the following recipients.

# ***Trivia***

* Nathaniel won the viewing lounge prediction game for this season.