Boreal

Orginal is here .  

Boreal is a game mode played in two phases where all players are either shaman or wolf shaman. In the first phase, the wolf shamans secretly try to starve someone and turn them into a wendedigo (vengeful spirit). In the second phase, the shamans must deal with both the hunger and the attempts by the Wendigo to reduce their numbers.
Can they exile the wolf shamans before they are destroyed?  

Story

It's winter and the coniferous forests of Canada are being ravaged by a seemingly incessant snowstorm. The tribe living here has fallen on hard times. All tracks for game are quickly covered with fresh snowfall, and all edible plants are long dormant and buried. Survival will be tough, so they turn to their shamans for help. In their longhouse, the shamans gather to create life-sustaining totems, gifts meant to help save the people as their supplies of food dwindle. Hopefully it will be enough to weather the storm.

One night, as the wind howls relentlessly, some of the shamans hear the voice of an evil spirit pretending to be the noble wolf. He tells them that this storm is a test of the gods and their intention is to only let the strong survive. To that end, he instructs them to change the magic in their totems instead of supporting the humans, forcing them to persevere on their own. Unaware of the spirit's evil nature, these select few shamans begin to modify their totems. They believe they are following the will of the wolf.

As hunger stalks the tribe, they recognize the fallen magic in some totems. Someone is working against you! Gathering for a tribal meeting, they must decide who is in charge and be exiled before starvation strikes them all. Alternatively, they could try to weather the storm. The village elder predicted it would be another ten days before things returned to normal. The evil spirits look happily at this scene. Should the wrong person be exiled, or someone starve while waiting out the storm, they will surely turn into a Wendigo and bring even more misery to the tribe.

Gameplay

All boreal players are either shaman or wolf shaman. Wolf Shaman cannot kill at night in this mode. Two custom totems are introduced in this mode: food and hunger. The game is played in two phases and the distribution of totems between phases is different. All shamans (but not wolf shamans) also have a hidden attribute called hunger level. Should this reach 5, the player will die of starvation. It cannot be lower than 0.

Every night the other members of the tribe have to be fed extra. To feed them, shamans with food totems should use the feed command in PM. This will result in the shaman giving their food totem to the tribe instead of another player. If enough food totems are given to the tribe, nothing happens. Otherwise they starve that night. If the tribe goes hungry for 3 nights (nights don't have to be consecutive), the game ends and the wolves win. Wolf shamans with hunger totems can also use feed to make the tribe hungrier and counteract the shamans' work.

Some wolf shamans may receive multiple totems per night depending on the number of players. To spend multiple totems, the wolf shaman must specify which totem to spend as part of the command, e.g. give hunger nickgive a hunger totem to the person named Nick. The totem name can be reduced to a short form, e.g. give h nick. If a wolf shaman is given both food and hunger totem on the same night, he must also use them through feed sustenance or feed hunger to indicate which totem is given to the tribe should be.

At the end of the night, totems are counted. If a player has more food totems than hunger totems, their hunger level will be reset to 0. Conversely, if they are more hungry than food totems, their hunger level will be set to 3 if it is lower than 3. Otherwise, the Hunger Totem has no effect. If a player has the same number of upkeep and hunger totems, they cancel each other out and nothing special happens.

Each player naturally gains 1 hunger level at the end of the night to represent their body consuming energy after all totem effects have been processed. Once a player reaches a hunger level of 3 or 4, they will be privately notified that they are hungry. Wolf shamans cannot starve and are not hungry.

Players can vote to exile someone during the day phase, or they can abstain. The abstention is not limited in this mode and can be taken every day. If they vote to exile all wolf shamans, the village wins. However, voting to exile a regular Shaman causes an evil spirit to possess her and turn her into a Wendigo, a vengeful spirit. When a normal shaman dies of starvation, he also becomes a vengeful spirit. Once a vengeful spirit becomes active, play advances to phase 2. If there are already a number of Vengeful Spirits equal to the number of Wolf Shamans alive, no additional Spirits will be spawned and the player just dies as normal.

In Phase 2, gain one random regular Shaman for each active Vengeful Ghost has a Vengeance Totem instead of its regular totem. The vengeful spirits can only attack normal shamans. Should the number of wolf shamans alive equal or exceed the number of regular shamans alive, the game is over and the evil spirits win.

At the end of night 7, the blizzard ends and the tribe can hunt and search again unless the evil spirits achieve a victory condition that night. After the food problem is solved, the village wins.

Roles

The default role is Shaman, so all empty slots of player counts below are Shaman. All regular shamans also become vengeful spirits when they starve or are chosen during the day, up to a maximum of the number of wolf shamans alive at the time of their death.
Other means of dying (e.g. idle or death by a totem or a vengeful spirit) do not exhibit this behavior.

• 6 Players wolf shaman (2)
• 10 Players wolf shaman (3)
• 15 Players wolf shaman (4)
• 20 Players wolf shaman (5)

Totem distribution

Totem	Shaman	Wolf Shaman
sustenance	60%	10%
hunger	---	40%
revealing	10%	10%
death	10%	10%
pacifism	10%	10%
luck	----	10%
silence	10%	10%

strategy

The village will generally never have enough totems to feed everyone and feed the tribe, and has to make difficult decisions when someone reports they are hungry - do they prevent shamans from starving or do they feed the tribe? avoid losing this way? Since shamans rarely obtain a revealing totem, they can gain information by hanging the revealing target instead of abstaining. However, due to the high number of Pacifism Totems in the game, they may not be able to get enough votes for a successful hanging.

Wolf Shaman can benefit from the random totems by pretending to have revealed and enforcing a Mislynch, or by giving Lucky Totems to targets who want to naturally starve. Wolf shamans can also pretend to be hungry to steal food totems from other players. If there are multiple wolf shamans in play, they should coordinate who to give hunger totems to via wolf chat to maximize their impact and speed up the start of Part 2.

Wolf Shamans can give themselves Revelation Totems when they suspect they are about to be lynched to avoid dying that day. The extra day can be enough to afford a win.

The village should be very confident that someone is a wolf shaman before going into exile (without totems). In general, it is better to abstain than to vote blindly.