Mafia: Phoenix's Fire

***Mafia: Phoenix's Fire*** is the sixteenth season of *The Mafia Series*.

*Mafia: Phoenix's Fire* was a twist-filled game that is notable for its supremely dominant mafia victory. For the first time, every member of the mafia time survived to the end of the game and won through the help of two specifically dominant members. This game was also notorious for having a rather idle town. The main twist of the game allowed up to four players to return from ashes to the game after previously being killed.

This game lasted from July 20, 2021 up to August 7, 2021. While the game moved reasonably quickly, several players were rather inactive, especially the majority of the villagers' team. In addition, because four players returned to the game, it added extra days to the game.

# ***Roles & Twists***

**Twists**
* **Phoenix's Fire:** The first seven players to die in the game entered into their own private Phoenix's Fire chat. They were given two options: to rise on their own or rise with the Phoenix. However, rising on one's own would give a player a large disadvantage while rising with the Phoenix grants an advantage rather than a disadvantage, but the player will only have a chance at returning to the game via this second route. All of this twist was secret to players still alive in the game.
	+ **Rising on One's Own:** The phoenix contained the power to allow three players to rise on their own. Any players they chose to rise on their own would become an ashen, a disadvantage secondary role that blocked their ability to vote and speak in private chats outside of the town.
	+ **Rising with the Phoenix:** Any players who chose not to rise on their own entered the Phoenix's Lair. They would wait until Day Six, at which point one of them would return to the game. The players would compete in a puzzle challenge, where the player with the fastest time would return to the game. Whoever returned to the game not only had all their power restored to them, but they also got to select between receiving immunity from the first kill after reviving or the first execution.
* **Mock Night:** There was no kill on Night Five, despite all normal actions being locked in. The kill was not announced, but instead, the host announced that the Phoenix had risen and that one player would be returning from the lair into the game. There was also no vote on Day Six because the returnees challenge occurred instead.
* **Lore:** All written by Nemo, each day up until the Phoenix rising, a case study was published from Norbert Fisherman, a resident of Bonereach. Each case study contained a hint toward the twist of the Phoenix's Fire. The story also contained a minor character named Jim the Rooster, who turned out to be the Phoenix!

# ***Game Summary***

*Written by **Phoenix**.*

The game started similar to normal, with a role call happening in town. Notable claims included the three apprentice claims, Malik, Nat, and SamB (of which Malik was the Mafia), and Aster's claim of a fake role "The Phoenix." At this time the Mafia team came up with a plan to have Piper the Accomplice, who was claiming Healer, repeatedly healed by Cam, the true Healer, in order to confirm her. Despite this, the team killed **Avtron**, as they were the monarch and the town would lose 2 votes with this kill.

For the first vote, Dani and Harp were initial targets for not sharing their roles. Despite this, Mafia member Eevee wanted to turn the votes against Aster, fearing him in the game. Dani then shared her claim of Jester with the town, which took suspicion off of her. In the end, **Eevee**'s plan worked and Aster was voted out with 8 votes.

The town got a nasty shock when Aster revealed himself to be the jester. He chose to replace Dani, as he thought she was responsible for his recent vote-out. Dani, however was also a jester, and two new replacements ensued. Aster chose to replace **Harp**, as Harp had not claimed since the beginning of the game. Dani chose to replace **Tay**, wishing to become the detective (the role Tay was claiming.)

Aster and Dani received their new roles. Dani was pleased that she chose correctly, while Aster was surprised but also excited to have a new role for the first time. (This logic doesn't make sense but it's what happened.) Aster and Piper created a new alliance together, which called for Dani to investigate Harp to prove Aster's new commoner claim. Despite being told she could not, Dani bluffed to say that Aster was the mafia. This caused much confusion, with Nat now becoming suspicious of Dani. The Mafia team chose to kill **Life**, as this would place even more suspicion on Dani.

Around this point, Dani chose to claim the role of Maniac, which confused the town. She then pushed for an Aster vote, while Eevee and Piper pushed against Dani. Swaggy, the monarch, relented and blocked all votes against Aster, which confirmed him. However, the majority of votes came against Dani, causing her to be voted out.

It was around this point that the *Phoenix's Fire* twist started to come into play. Participants would be faced with the decision of whether to have a guaranteed return with a major disadvantage, or to fight against other contestants to return with an advantage. After Aster was voted out again, and Karte was killed, the three charges of the first option were used, causing **Aster**, **Dani**, and **Karte** to return. Additionally, **Life** won the entry competition, which guaranteed him a return to the town. This discouraged some members of the mafia, who were frustrated with the twist.

Around this time in the game, Cam and Hades started to grow suspicious of Piper, fearing that her hearing claim was falsified. The two agreed to pursue the idea further, but did not know they were almost out of time. With the mafia eliminating most of the town, including **Nat**, **SamB**, and **Hades**, the mafia had already won. In a live finish, the mafia finally took control and eliminated the rest of the town. The survivors were the whole mafia team, being **Malik**, **Andrew**, **Piper**, and **Eevee**.

# ***Voting History***

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

* This game originally had no connection to Phoenix, the player. However, Phoenix was added as a host soon after the creation of the season, increasing the number of hosts from two to three.
	+ Phoenix become the second person after Piper to host before becoming a member of the crew, though Piper become a moderator shortly after her first hosted game began.
	+ Phoenix later became a member of the crew during the eighteenth game.
* Havoc won the viewing lounge prediction game for this season.