Mafia 64: Monty Barnum's Travelling Circus.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Rasputin
GAME ON !!!


Who starting the next thread

in.

[Nikolai]

IN here too. Congratulations.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Only an acrobat like Xia could have done this.

yes a bloody acrobat...

did I just pick the wrong one

clank clank clank

[Hercules]

Falling out of favour

I’m on a tightrope, baby, nine miles high
Striding through the clouds, on my ribbon in the sky
I’m on a tightrope, one thing I’ve found
I don’t know how to stop, and its a
Long, long, long, long way down

Charles was certain it was Xia and said so first. Xia had no choice but to blame Charles.
Ajax, because he wanted to spend a final night with Xia, chose Charles .

So Charles accepted his fate, climbed into the cannon along with a length of rope. Xia fired the cannon. The rope shot out first followed by Charles . Charles created one last great illusion: He appeared to slide down the rope towards earth.

We buried Charles where he landed and the elephants packed the earth. We placed a tombstone on his gravelet with the message ‘ Even Niagara Falls ‘. We thought he would have liked that.

[Hercules]

Crouching Xia, Hidden Ajax

I'm a mess without my little China Girl
Wake up in the morning. Where's my, little China Girl?
I hear our heart's beating, loud as thunder
I saw the stars crashing down



To celebrate the end of the tour I took the band along to the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Conneticut. We left Xia and Ajax behind to clean up or so Ajax said.

The band found it a very interesting museum as they hadn’t been before. Coming towards the end of the visit I suddenly realised who was the killer.

‘Let’s hurry back to Hope’. I said. But it was too late. We don’t dare guess what happened to her earlier but we found her dead on the ground with a DVD beside her.

The DVD showed Xia arching her back and back flipping into the cannon. She was given her bowls by Ajax who fired the cannon and Xia flew into the air. In a remarkable display of juggling and gymnastics, she spelt out a message in the sky. Bye Bye.

We buried Xia where she landed and the elephants packed the earth. I planted a lot of seeds on her grave so that someday someone could see the message. ‘Kicking up daisies’. We thought she would have liked that.


AJAX was long gone.

[Paddy]

that bloody Rasputin

[Hercules]

Circus Clues

As always there were clues galore. They were in several categories as below.
The location clue, letters, allow for spelling Rasputin and with a bit of invention regarding X, AJAX. (Well maybe Xia at the end too). I nearly chose TROY in Maine as the destination but that would have tempted fate.


Rasputin Clues

Half anagrams / word clues
It was not easy placing these clues in the text. Rasputin himself gave a hint with crossword reference. I thought somebody would spot a the close proximity of letters such as pu ti n and put 2 and 2 together.
Rudy’s body under some taupaulin =rasputin (Rudy’s death)
let’s organize some routine, as soon as possible = some of routine + ASAP =Rasputin (Harry’s death)
Paris in the spring’. ‘I’m mad about Paris’ (Alfredo’s death) obscure.
circus pairs, Nutt ( Jules’s death) = pairs + Nutt =Rasputin with a spare t


Religious / life
I wanted to, but couldn’t use reference like monk or faithhealer or Moscow or Russia, too easy. So had to make do with tsar /star and prophet. (Read Wiki)

star = tsar ( repeated throughout game) it’s a sound like clue.
profits = prophet ( repeated throughout game)
knives, in a pattern = hinting at a pentacle (cult worship) ( Rudy’s Death)
Romantic = obscure clue hinting at the Romanovs (Rasputin connection)
psychic, obscure ( Pablo’s death)

Location clue from venues.
I loved the way these led to red herrings and to deaths Tornado and Will9.

Rose Hill, (Rudy’s death location) = R
Strawberry, Arkansas (Hugo’s death location) =S and A
Idlewild’, Tennessee (Pablo’s death location)= I and T
Altavista, Virginia’ ( Harry’s death location) = A
Atlantic City, New Jersey (William’s death location) = A and N and J
‘Ulster, New York ’ (Felix’s death location) = U and N and Y
Prides Crossing, Massachusetts’ (Alfredo’s death location) = P and X ( crossing)

Ajax Clues

but I hear Milan is knockout’. Ajax chipped in ‘I loved Dubrovnic’ = Ajax’s real name was Joesph Milana .he married a Miss Dubrovinic. (Alfredo’s death)


Cleaner / pigeon references
In RL Mighty Ajax started out as a pigeon trainer.

Meanwhile, Pablo, Hugo, The Mighty Ajax and Clyde helped with the mundane circus tasks: feeding the animals and the bagging of horse, elephant, pigeon and lion turds. This associates Ajax with the pigeon ****. (Rudy’s Death).
bagged the same range of excreta as before. = reinforcing the connection and repeated (Hugo’s death) and others.
Next to his head was a little stain. Sh*t I thought, = small **** = pigeon (Harry’s death)
the casinos and were taken to the cleaners on the roulette wheel ( Harry’s death).
Speak to me’ he said to the elephants.‘Pidgglett eeggbbesgb’ was the reply. (Felix’s death) = pigeon English also Beegees reference.
There was a small stain on his costume. (Felix’s death).

Sword Clues
All the bolded words are also the name of famous Swordswallowers.

we reduce the price ( Harry’s death)
Chr*st no’ (Harry’s death)
‘Look, being a circus performer is no life of Riley’ (Harry’s death)
long ling ering look. (Harry’s death)
what a daredevil (Harry’s death)
a knife pierce d
no lucky ball s there. Some went to fish restaurants for pike, salmon and trout.
(William’s death)



spelling / word clue
sounds like JAX

hydraulic press (Felix’s death) = jack = jax
a ship load of sailors, (Felix’s death) = jack tars
small flags at the back (Felix’s death) = jacks
whole bunch of tree fellers (Felix’s death) = lumberjacks
drinking hard cider. (Felix’s death) = Applejack
The Knave of Cups (Felix’s death) knave = Jack

We’ll put Xia in after Jules and Alfredo (Alfredo’s death) = JAX


Brisbane Clues Rasputin’s home

Half anagrams / word clues

Who ever heard of bear bins ?

New bear bins (Hugo’s death) = bear+ bins = Brisbane
Recycling….rain barrels, his enthusiasm ebbs (Pablo’s death) = rain+ ebbs = Brisbane
Alfredo put out the bear bins for recycling. (William’s death)
stood on the bear bins and rolled (Felix’s death)
missing sabres broken in pieces. We gathered them up and put them in the bin. (Alfredo’s death) sabres + bin = Brisbane (Ok there’s an extra s)
the sabres……….. . We put them in the bin. (Jule’s death).


The Beegees
This was the best fun. Brisbane was the adopted home of the BeeGees or Brisbane claims them as a famous people connection.

GeeGeeGeeGGGGGGGGeeGee ( Rudy’s death).
the elephants puzzled……………. GGGBBB (Pablo’s death).
EEEEEEE went the elephants. (Harry’s death).
Pidgglett eeggbbesgb’ (Felix’s death).
The elephants typed out GBBEGGEBB.( Felix’s death).
the elephants, with Charles, typed out the usual GEBBEG ( Jules’s death).

Beegees song references

May the First. Well ok it should have been The First of May (Alfredo’s death)
Massachusetts (Alfredo’s death). I was pleased to make the circus tour reach here.
the main hope was staying alive ( Jules’s death).

As mentioned earlier I was so tempted to choose the town of Troy, Maine. But I thought someone would connect Troy with Ajax. Hence also the absence of Greek place names and Greek mythology references.

Even so Rasputin was lucky twice. First Will9 thought he saw a reference to Ajax being killed in my mixed up post. There wasn’t, but the mix up may have unintentionally placed the words Ajax and dead beside each other which maybe led people to think that Rasputin was to be future victim and hence not the Mafia. And the second was the coin toss up.

Hope you enjoyed it and think to yourself ‘maybe I should have spotted one or two clues’.

[Paddy]

nice work Herc

[Sparrowhawk]

Congrats to both Ras and Herc. Well done both of you.

/me

[Tuberski]

And you guys complained my clues were too obscure........



ACK!

[Kuciwalker]

I thought the swords were a false flag.

[Hercules]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I thought the swords were a false flag.

The idea was that because they were stolen, anyone could have stolen and used them. The same about the knives.

But Rasputin did play a good game by being the same as he always is and trying to be helpful solving clues.

I wonder did he spot the broken sabres clue because when he talked about it he reverted to the word swords.

[Spaced Cowboy]

wow herc takes this game to a whole new level.

That is two mafia wins in a row.

[Ben Kenobi]

Once paddy went down I figured it was rasputin.

Course I was dead by then.

Well played.

[Rasputin]

No it is amazing being the Mafia and not finding one solitary clue that leads to myself.

Herc you are amazing !!


My main game plan from start knowing how Herc is with clues was to be as abstract as possible. I googled My character Ajaz and learnt all i could about him, I did find the fact i was a pidgeon trainer but lucjily Herc never makes things like that obvious.

The deaths i selected were totally random at first, i made a small change to my list early in game to remove the random docpile starters as i thought keeping the clue solvers in the game was my best bet of survival and removing anyone who seemed to randomly pick a name would protect me. This was based on the last few games under herc and also my own GMing, the random docpiler seemed to pick the mafia more frequently than a clue finder. So future mafias there is a tip for your own survival. and future docpile starters beware.

Hercs story line of course determined my final kill sequence. Unfortunatly Mrs Tubs got her self killed by looking guilty. But hercs first round in the story suggested Ajax had been yearning for Gypsy and Xia so those two were always going to be last on my list.

Thanks Herc....