Mafia: Spirit Sanctuary

***Mafia: Spirit Sanctuary*** is the twenty-seventh season of *The Mafia Series*.

This game created the new twist involving **spirit roles**, which had been planned by Brainz for about a year since the start of the game. The 27th game in the series featured hard gameplay of the confirming strategy, which ultimately led to the downfall of the Mafia team. The Mafia team was only comprised of one head Mafia, but no accomplices, and three corrupted roles. The spirit roles were not as strategically used as anticipated, because the game ended short with a whopping 11 survivors.

This game lasted from April 2, 2022 up to April 14, 2022. While the game was shorter than most other games this size, it had high activity rates that allowed for lots of discussion in the town (though it became toxic at times.)

# ***Roles & Twists***

**Twists**
* **Spirit Roles:** A new subset of secondary roles were introduced: spirit roles. Spirit roles were assigned to certain players at the beginning of the game, but those players would not know that they had those roles until after they died. After one of the eight players with a spirit role died, they would be informed upon entering sequester. They would then be told what type of spirit they were. The four spirit roles introduced were the **Restless**, **Vengeful**, **Cursed**, and **Bonding** Spirits.

# ***Game Summary***

This season began as a slower season, without much concern for the new *Spirits* twist. While claims were arising, they were arising slowly. It took several days for all the role claims to be collected, and most of them were unreliable, and frankly, unnecessary lies. The Mafia team of four members appeared to be strong, but they weren't too communicative. Zach, the Mafia, was disconnected from the game for the very couple days. He decided to kill **Nat** last minute, as it was the first name he could think of. He also claimed to be an apprentice to the town.

However, this kill directly caused the fall of another one of his Mafia members. Avtron had claimed that they were a joker following Nat... but when Nat died, all eyes were on him. **Avtron** was quickly the first boot of the game, though it was very divided with various plans to confirm the monarchs and other lawyers and the gambler.

Additionally, during the first vote, several players wanted to "destroy the meta-game" by simply causing chaos for the town. This was mainly led by Life, who wanted to play a more villainous game, and Aster and Havoc (who revealed himself as 3rd Party) were involved as well. Lego and PK, the two psychics, were also included in this group. Meanwhile, while the two psychics were watching this drama unfold, they continued to have insightful conversations in the graveyard together.

**Havoc** was the next one killed by the Mafia, despite the rest of the team's pleas that he not be killed to avoid suspicion on them. But, as Havoc was killed, he decided to drag **Eevee**, who Havoc saw as possibly hiding a more powerful town or Mafia role.

The two detective claims had become suspicious. Kae had claimed that Avtron was a joker, while Crystal had correctly claimed that they were a corrupted joker. Most players trusted Kae, but upon hearing rumors that she with 3rd Party, **Kae** was instead executed in a quick last-minute switch.

**Calvin** again faced his 18th place curse as he was the third person killed by the Mafia for being a greater threat. The Mafia was slowly beginning to gain footing, but it was too little, too late. Both Zach and Sam were viewed as possible votes down the road. But Aster instead was a major target because he refused to claim any role to the town, preferring to hide his seemingly weak judge role. Additionally, some players were suspicious of Lego for appearing very defensive for others. Even with all these factors, **Crystal** was still executed because she was an unconfirmable detective who had already used both searches.

Both blacksmith claims, Emmi and Sam, had failed to charge barely at all because they had both voted for Aster during the previous vote. While this made them both look suspicious, players started to become less suspicious of Sam simply due to his dedication to helping the town.

As a confirmed gambler, the Mafia opted to kill **Meli**. **Aster** was then executed nearly unanimously after a rather inactive couple of days. The graveyard was progressively becoming more active, also, due to more active players arriving there. Another powerful confirmed player, **Jelk** fell victim to the Mafia. While Zach seemed to be next on the radar, he was given one last chance to prove himself since Jelk (the person he claimed to have been following as the apprentice) had died. Emmi revealed herself as a jester, and she pushed for herself to get executed - in a sense. She was executed, but she chose to take **Anubis**'s role to become a confirmed town leader.

**Zach** was simply unable to avoid another vote, though Sam was now out of the firing range. But once Zach was executed, the game ended, causing the two surviving Mafia members - **PK** and **Sam** - to lose. While spirits were rather uninvolved in strategy, this game showed spirits to be a fun, interesting twist. These special roles also appeared to be more beneficial to future games that would last longer. Ultimately, **Emmi**, **Hades**, **Harp**, **Lego**, **Life**, **Piper**, **Smk**, **Spheal**, and **Twinny** survived and won for the town!

# ***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 and Stella won the viewing lounge prediction game for this season.