Murder! Mayhem! Mischief!

In honor of my upcoming birthday, I decided to bring the delight that are the freeform murder mystery games to Bourne Chambers - technically, I could've waited until closer to my actual birthday, but... well... that would've involved actually waiting. :) As always, the invitation list changed dramatically the night before/day of as some got sick, some got called for work early the next morning, etc and new people stepped in last minute - but I think we finally ended up with 14 - all the necessary characters, and two of the extra characters. The game was pirate themed: think of a cliche from Pirates of the Caribbean or Treasure Island, and it was there - the womanizer pirate captain and his rival cutthroat female captain, the kidnapped governor and his daughter, the natives of the Caribbean isle, the mysterious masked avenger, the marooned pirate who's gone crazed by the sun, etc. We took over the top floor (the common room, kitchen, hallway, and both Lars' and Patrick's rooms were available for running about, plotting, conversing, and fights TO THE DEATH. 

I was quite impressed with how well everyone played the game - a few people got confused or missed out on doing their goals, but most were running around, making deals and planning to stab each other in the back. I can't decide who won MVP - 

John put the most effort into his costume (he played the colonial captain who came to rescue the governor and his daughter - basically, Commodore Norrington from the

 Pirates of the Caribbean movies) and he managed to tack a massive amount of trim and buttons onto his normal black overcoat - quite impressive. 

(Although, in this category, credit must be given to Lars' cardboard

 and construction paper tricorn hat and Ciaran's egg carton armor) Ciaran was the mad pirate, but managed to keep under wraps that he had been cured within the first ten minutes of the game - he stole the second treasure map (there were two) and managed to bargain his freedom from two different groups with both, then stole the treasure back once it was found [he wasn't allowed to go search for it himself] and hid it. He later married the Taino princess, meaning he was allied with all three major enemies of the game, pretty much guaranteeing his place off of the island and completing his goals.

 

Lars, meanwhile, was the male pirate captain - for most of the game he had an "alliance" with Julia, the female pirate captain, all the while stealing nearly all of her crew, getting the colonials to support him, getting a Royal Pardon from the governor (the only one handed out), and finally had Julia killed off and received every single vote at the end of the game, giving him control of both ships off of the island. He promised Abigail that she could be the captain of the second ship if she gave him the treasure - she did, he took the treasure, then gave the second ship instead to Patrick - again, he won every last goal, put everyone else on the second ship, and sailed off into the sunset with the treasure, his own ship, his rival dead, and a Royal Pardon that prevented him from being trialled or punished for his crimes of piracy.

Though, props should be given to Tristin, thrown into the game at the last minute, one of his abilities was the ability to poison food - all he had to do was make someone eat or drink something he'd touched, and he could poison them. This ability took out the Spaniard Don Inigo. He nearly killed off Ciaran's mad pirate (after curing him earlier in the game...) but Ciaran instead took the cheese and tried to poison the governor with it. (Fortunately, Jack saw through the ploy as well)

The game was a great success and we're already planning the next one - Lars and I are going to joint host Hollywood Lies, since I've played it before, but it's perfectly suited for the crowd around here. :) 

In other murderous, destructive news (which I realize I haven't posted here yet), Lars bought Risk... and we've all become absolutely addicted. (Actually, to be fair, it's the guys and myself - Julia and Mione played a game or two, but haven't played since) For a bit of bragging (and to make mes freres proud), I have *won* two of the games we've played! (I won the first game of Mission Risk that we played, and won Team Risk [even more incredible, since Lars, Will, and Ciaran were all on the other team] ) and oh-so-nearly won the last game we played - it was the second game of Mission Risk, and I had finished three of my four missions - the final one being "Conquer Europe" - while I didn't have any men on Europe, I controlled North and South America, as well as territories in Asia and one on Australia, and had cards to turn in - basically, I loaded up Iceland and Brazil with about a million men and just went on a massive spree. I managed to take out all of Europe and North Africa (as a buffer zone, and way into Europe)... except for stupid 'Southern Europe', which defended itself with one man pretty much miraculously until I was forced to retreat as I had no men left. With only one man left on pretty much all of my territories and the guys knowing that they had to crush me or I'd win, I was pretty much destroyed the ensuing round, except for a sole territory in northeastern Russia, which I held for round after round after round. Good times. :)