75th ♫ | my tired brethren are slumbering

[mytarget]

The Murder Game Meme



You know the script. You wake up in a place you've never seen before, with a whole bunch of complete strangers and there's a mysterious voice or a mascot or what have you ready to let you know how things are going to work around here.

The rules are simple: You're trapped here, with no hope of release or rescue. You've been provided with all the basic necessities you need to live comfortably, and all you have to do is settle down and live out the rest of your days here in peace. But if you can't do that -- if you're really so desperate to escape that you'll do anything -- then there's one teeny tiny thing you have to do first.

All you have to do is kill somebody.

But it's not quite that simple. Every death will be followed by a period of investigation, followed by a trial in which the survivors will attempt to solve the mystery and out the culprit. If the survivors guess correctly and out the culprit, the killer is executed and life goes on. But if the survivors guess wrong, then the culprit is free as a bird and everyone else is executed.

Even with the promise of freedom, can you really bring yourself to kill so many other people?

tl;dr: it's a murdergame meme. TIME TO HAVE A BIG OL' MURDERGAME BLAST.


Settings

1. High School A classic! Doesn't matter if you're too old or too young to be in high school -- you've been enrolled and the only way for you to graduate is to kill a fellow student. But hey, the faculties are nice!
2. Tropical Island Weren't you just hankering for a nice tropical vacation? No? Too bad! You're going to have a nice sunny vacation at the beach and if you don't like it, just kill someone and go home. Simple!
3. Prison It doesn't matter if you don't remember committing any crime; you've been tried and found guilty of something or other and now you can go ahead and rot away in jail. If you ever want to see the sunlight again, better put that criminal mind to good use and get rid of your inmates.
4. Mall A huge mall stuffed full of stores, places to eat and all the regular amenities like deadbolted doors and the threat of death. It's like Black Friday but even worse because you can't leave and all the rest of the shoppers might actually kill you for real this time.
5. City Holy shit, you've got the run of a whole city this time around! Maybe with all this room to keep out of each other's way, you'll be able to make sure no one starts killing people. But probably not.
6. Cruise Boat YOU'RE ON A BOAT, MOTHERFUCKER. The accommodation is all five star, even if there's no one around to act as wait staff. The only snag is that you still have this whole murder thing hanging over your head – but on the plus side, they have those little drinks with the umbrellas in, so...
7. Space Station THE FINAL FRONTIER... Maybe you're familiar with space stations like this or maybe all this future tech is fascinating to you. Not like it matters either way, of course, because you won't be getting out of here unless you lay down a murder on someone.
8. Wildcard! None of the above scratch your murder itch? Go wild and come up with your own setting!



Downtime

1. Excuse Me, Who Are You? You've just woken up in this weird place and you have no idea what's going on. But hey -- maybe this stranger's more informed than you. Or maybe you can put your heads together and investigate what's going on.
2. Social Link Go! Well, if you're going to be stuck in here for however long, you might as well get to know the people stuck in here with you. You've got plenty of rooms to explore together and there's enough to do to keep you occupied. How do you plan on passing time without killing each other?
3. Vending Machine Woes Somewhere in this place there's a mysterious vending machine that spits out all manner of bizarre items and occasionally dispenses items that belong to you and the other people trapped here. You've got a fat stack of tokens and nothing to lose.
4. The Corners of My Mind So as it turns out, your lovely hosts have been fiddling with your memories. Maybe you're just discovering this now or maybe you've had a particularly upsetting memory regain you're dealing with.
4. Wildcard! GO WILD AND BE FREE (or as free as you can be here, anyways)



PUTTING THE MURDER IN MURDER GAME

1. Motive Your mysterious overseer has decided there's not nearly enough murder going on and so they've ~helpfully~ given you a little push to do the deed. Maybe one of your loved ones is in danger, maybe they're offering more money than you could ever dream of or they're threatening to reveal your deepest darkest secrets. Whatever is it, would you kill for it?
2. Murder WELL APPARENTLY, YES. Are you a killer or are you being killed? Either way, someone's not walking away from this alive.
3. Body Discovery Rise and shine, murdergame! It's a brand new day and someone's dead. Better get investigating!
4. Trial You know how this one goes. Line up all your evidence and sniff out the killer -- or sit there and sweat and hope no one works out you're the murderer. Will they go down with a confession or put up a fight?
5. Afterparty You've survived another trial, but more of your friends have died. Even without the executions, trials are a stressful enough affair. It's time to destress and lick your wounds and support each other.
6. Mastermind It's the end. It's time to uncover all the mysteries behind this murder game -- and find out just who trapped you here. Are they really an unconnected party, or is the mastermind someone among you...?
7. Freedom Just as it says -- you're finally free, but at what cost? Have those you love been returned to you, or are you still reduced to just those who made it to the end? Are you on your own, or is anyone here to help you? And more importantly, how the hell are you going to get home?
8. Wildcard YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO


OPTIONAL FUN

Lots of murdergames have in-universe public profiles for other characters to get the skinny on yours. If you'd like to fill one out to post with your toplevel, peep at the code below!

<center><b>Name:</b> NAME | <b>TITLE (Super High School Level, Ultimate, Champion, etc)</b> <b>Age:</b> AGE | <b>Species:</b> SPECIES | <b>Occupation:</b> OCCUPATION <b>Likes:</b> LIKES <b>Dislikes:</b> DISLIKES <b>Traits:</b> A HANDFUL OF NOTABLE TRAITS <b>Trivia:</b> A PIECE OF TRIVIA</ul>

Comments

Bryn Pendragon | OC

[draconite]

Name: Brynhilde Pendragon | Champion of Ashes / Draconian (you can pick your poison i'm not fussy)
Age: 18 | Species: Human, dragon | Occupation: Wandering troublemaker adventurer
Likes: A good fight, hot food around a campfire, adventuring
Dislikes: Humans, princes, losing.
Traits: Adventurous, impulsive, cheerful, vengeful
Trivia: She likes to be called Bryn.

[ Physical impressions cliffnotes here! A traveling warrior with as many braincells as she has functioning eyes (which is to say, one). She was raised by a dragon as part of his horde until a prince whose name and face she's yet to find out went and slayed him. After taking on the powers of her Dead Dragon Dad, Bryn has set out on a Revenge Road Trip across the continent of Seidrfold, a Fantasy Kitchen Sink setting full of all sorts of neat European mythological nonsense. Despite how edgy that description makes her sound, she's actually a cheerful, high-energy sheltered weirdo who cannot be trusted with her own braincell and is having SO MUCH FUN out here on her wild adventure. She can get kind of weird and condescending about Regular Humans as a consequence of her upbringing, and she's also kind of cheerfully bloodthirsty about seeing culprits executed??? I'm sure it's fine. ]

[disarmingstrikes]

[Island motive time?]

[draconite]

[ I'M HERE FOR IT ]

[disarmingstrikes]

[It's the soft, vaguely tropical muzak constantly playing over the island's PA system that makes it for Magnus. Each Tuesday, the morning routine is at some point interrupted by a crackling, tinny announcement of whatever is supposed to motivate them to kill this week, and then it's straight back to the casual bongos.]

[On the murder-menu this week: kill someone to win a lifetime supply of keylime Gogurt.]

WE-E-E-AK!

[Ridiculous as it is, someone's still probably going to die this week, that's an unfortunately established fact by now.]

[But it's also established that the people behind this have ways of listening in on the island, and Magnus is gonna use that to fight back the only way he can right now; heckling.]

[draconite]

[ See, Bryn would usually be joining in with all the yelling and jeering – she's not all that bothered about the murder part, but the whole making a game of it and the dumb motives? That's kind of tacky. She's not into it.

Which is why it's weird that she's squinting at the motive announcement like she is? Is she thinking it over, maybe? Is Gogurt what it took to break her??? ]

Magnus.

What... is keylime Gogurt?

[ oh, never mind. ]

[disarmingstrikes]

It's a dairy product which is both tasty and completely gross and parents of young children try to pretend is an actual dessert.

[Pudding for king of lunchtime sweets.]

[draconite]

I do admit the phrase "Gogurt" doesn't sound particularly appealing... but just what about it exactly is so offensive?

[ Apart from it being offered as a motive for murder, obvs. ]

[disarmingstrikes]

Hm. Ever had ice cream?

Yuri | Doki Doki Literature Club

[impurifies]

Name: Yuri | Champion of Markov
Age: 18 | Species: Human | Occupation: Ordinary High School Student
Likes: Horror and fantasy fiction, tea, poetry
Dislikes: Manga, people who try too hard to act cute
Traits: Introverted, apologetic, bashful
Trivia: She's kind of into knives.

[ On the surface, Yuri is Your typical Shrinking Violet (HEH) bookwork girl, super withdrawn and self-deprecating and bad at making friends with new people. Can be super clingy and a bit intense if you manage to engage her and get her out of her shell, but she's really just a lonely girl in need of some good friends. But other than that, she's Totally Normal!

... Until she starts getting some memory regains and then things go to shit a lil bit. UPSIDE DOWN SMILE EMOJI.

Obviously, threads come with a preemptive warning for potential DDLC spoilers as well as potential content warnings (highlight to see!): Unreality, gaslighting, self-harm and attempted suicide. ]

we talked about this 5ever ago but im making it happen try and stop me

[philoxenia]

[ Ever since this whole thing had started, Mira and Yuri have spent quite a bit of time together. They both love books, after all, and Mira isn't about to turn down a friend. She's been lonely for too long, after all, and Yuri... well, she's pretty quiet, but Mira is too. It's kind of amazing, how well two withdrawn people can get along.

Even if Mira worries about her a lot.

It's a couple weeks in, and the memories have really kicked in. Mira'd woken up this morning, the memory too vivid and horrifying. It's pretty late in the morning, and usually she's up before then, but she'd... needed some time. She'd been afraid of running into anyone, because she's never been good at hiding how she feels about anything, and she really doesn't want to talk about it.

Or does she? She doesn't know. She keeps seeing the bloodied knife in her hands, her brother on the floor--

A cup slips and falls to the floor, shattering immediately. ]

[impurifies]

[ Sundays are a headache, for lots of reasons.

Everyone's up and about again on Sundays. It makes Yuri feel like she has to be, too, even if she's not quite ready to face everyone else yet. It scares her a little, just how quickly they can all get up and carry on like nothing has happened and it scares her even more how quickly she's started doing it, too.

She relies on her quiet hours in the library with Mira more than anything, but especially on Sundays. In the library, there's no expectations between them to discuss memories or the trial, or anything they don't want to discuss. There's no expectations of talking at all, if they don't need to. It's exactly the kind of peace and quiet Yuri craves, especially after this week's round of memories – she wants to drown herself in it.

Haha. Fat chance of that.

When she hears the cup shatter on the floor, Yuri jumps and the book she'd been holding slips from her grasp and clatters to the floor too – though admittedly, with a bit less mess. ]

M–Mira?! [ Here she comes, hurrying over to Mira's side. ] What happened? Y–you didn't cut your fingers, did you?

BB | Fate

[sakurabeam]

Name: BB | Champion of the Mooncell / MoonCancerous (you can pick your poison i'm not fussy)
Age: Good question! | Species: A.I. | Occupation: Final boss-style kouhai
Likes: Senpai, bullying little piggies, humans
Dislikes: Cleaning up everyone's mess, her embarrassing past, humans.
Trivia: Don't be tricked when she acts like a villain. BB's a pure maiden at heart. ♡
[ An A.I. who's been brought down to the level of a lowly regular human and is SERIOUSLY not happy about it. She's a bit of a troll with a petty, sadictic streak who likes stirring up trouble, but has a good heart when things come down to the wire. She calls herself an evil villain and yet, she opposes evil and villainy with all her heart. ♡

since C.C.C. has yet to be properly translated I'm working entirely off the FGO translation and what I can pull together from the wikis s–SO PLEASE GO EASY ON ME ]

Sophie Summerhelm | OC

[summerbloom]

Name: Sophie Summerhelm | Champion Alchemist / Incandescent
Age: 19 | Species: Human | Occupation: Royal Alchemist of Adelheld, champion of Leta
Likes: Peppergrass tea, crows, her friends
Dislikes: The Church of Light, bitter-tasing vegetables, winter mornings
Traits: Hardworking, bright, self-deprecating
Trivia: Sophie is the youngest person yet to inheret the title of Royal Alchemist.

[ Impressions post with more info here! An ex-sickly anime waif and certified Good Girl. Exceedingly polite to the point of farce and aggressively sunshiney and eager to support her friends to combat for her relatively poor self-esteem. Does her best to Love Everyone, even if they're a bit of a shitter but anyone who's cruel to her friends is cruising for a bruising.

As her profile mentions, she's an alchemist who's been studying since she was pretty young. She doesn't remember most of the other stuff on her profile though and will assume it was a mistake or a joke at her expense. Until memory regains start rolling in and then she'll work it out. UNHAPPY FACE.

Not a doctor, but she has some medical experience as an alchemist, so she'll probably be your resident corpse examiner, especially if it looks like someone's been poisoned. ]

Erina Estival | OC

[zweihandler]

Name: Erina Estival | Champion of Synchronicity
Age: 16 | Species: Synchronic | Occupation: Student at Estrella Academy
Likes: Swords, cute girls, swordfighting cute girls, Hilda Roth
Dislikes: Lukewarm soda, homework, Hilda Roth
Traits: Loud, hot-headed, stubborn
Trivia: Gay for two things: haunted swords, and women.

[ Erina is a Superpowered Anime Teen known as a Synchronic from an OC verse running on the rules of a Battle High School Anime setting. Erina attends Estrella Academy, a prestigious school for promising young Synchronics and eventually ends up poking her nose into dangerous conspiracies going on behind the scenes at Estrella. A big ol loudmouth showboater who lives her entire life like she has something to prove to every single person around her, individually. She tries very hard to act like she's cool and doesn't care about anything because she's an unaffected badass but she Cares So Much About Everything. Not very good at sincerity, but gradually gets the fuck over herself and chills out a little. ]

[in4apounding]

[so how 'bout some memory regain shenanigans on a boat, it definitely won't be super messed up]

[zweihandler]

[ absolutely. fuck me UP w the sad memory shit ]

[in4apounding]

Name: Penny Polendina| Champion Cutting Edge
Age: Yes | Species: Artificial Human | Occupation: Huntress, Maiden
Likes: Friendship, fighting, Ruby
Dislikes: Grimm, magnets, robophobia
Traits: Outgoing, curious, protective
Trivia: Penny made it to the singles round of Vytal Festival Tournament; unfortunately her fight came down to the wire and was highly divisive.

[Sundays on the SS Charybdis mean one thing; forgotten memories returning. Penny has thus far made a conscious effort to get out and check on everyone; some of these days have been rougher than the trials. Today though?]

[Today, Penny does not emerge from her cabin.]

[zweihandler]

[ You want some alone time, Penny? Well, too bad. Erina hasn't seen you all day and that's made her worried, but instead of expressing these feelings like a normal person, here she is giving the door to Penny's cabin a lil kicky like an asshole. ]

Hey, Polendina. I know you're in there, because I haven't seen your freckles flash past this morning and neither has anyone else. I'm not gonna drag you out, but give a girl a shout and let me know you're still alive in there, yeah? I'm only, like, sixty percent joking. It's a real fucking concern in this place.

[in4apounding]

[Yeah, any kind of response takes a second. The door cracks open, and Penny peaks out.]

[She kind of looks, in clinical, emotional terms, like shit.]

Ah, salutations, Erina. I'm sorry, I should have- are you all right?

[For as much as Penny might genuinely care, that is absolutely the tone of someone trying to deflect their problems by asking about someone else's.]

[zweihandler]

[ The instant the door opens, Erina is right the fuck there and smoothly wedges her foot into the opening to make absolutely sure it won't be shutting again. Well, not unless Penny goes ham and slices her foot in two but that's apparently a risk she's willing to take. ]

Yeah, yeah, cool, never better. You know me. [ she says this all very fast without a pause for Penny to break in. ] What about you?

Aster Kairos | DnD OC

[malaphar]

Name: Ashtoreth Valefor Caerus III | Champion Pickpocket / SHSL Misfortune / Deceiver
Age: 23 | Species: Tiefling | Occupation: Thief
Likes: Cards, adventure, traveling
Dislikes: Aristocracy, gods, chance
Traits: Reckless, impulsive,
Trivia: His natural hair color is black.

[Aster is every dumbass that acts cooler than they are; he doesn't speak up much, and when he does it's usually to say something sarcastic. He also has a terrible poker face, and tends to panic or shut down under extreme pressure, and tends to impulsively shuffle a deck of cards when nervous. rough impressions post here!]

garviel loken | wh40k

[starcharse]

Name: Garviel Loken | Phlegmatic
Age: 143 | Species: Human | Occupation: Ex-Captain of the 10th Company of the XVI Legion
Likes: Simplicity, war, The Chronicles of Ursh
Dislikes: Secrecy, enemies of the Imperium, the lodge
Traits: Solemn, forthright, straitlaced
Trivia: Loken's friends call him "Garvi."

[ ALTERNATE TITLES: Champion Loyalist (if you're feeling nice), Traitor to the Legion (if you're feeling mean), or Starch-Arse (if you're feeling cheeky).

Despite his profile blithely giving his species as human, Loken is a nine-foot-tall super-muscular super-soldier who appears to be an adult in the prime of his life despite being nearly 150 years old! When asked about the discrepancy, he calls himself an "Astartes warrior." He has about the personality you might expect: serious and regimented, Loken is the sort of person to put down rules and curfews to manage the situation, and he definitely isn't used to considering "mortals" as his equals. He also has a distinct discomfort with non-humans, the religious, and practitioners of anything he deems "sorcery."

With all that said, he's Gone Through Some Shit lately that has made him a bit more tolerant than he might otherwise be. Tends to watch over others, but doesn't know how to process a single emotion he feels himself. Can often be found working out, mourning the loss of his superhuman strength and durability, reading mythic and historical epics, and looking sadly at a poorly-printed pamphlet of poetry he got from the regain machine but claims is too highbrow for him to understand. ]

Michael | The Good Place

[eudaimonikos]

Name: Michael | CHAMPION OF HUMANITY / REVOLUTIONARY
Age: 4.543 billion | Species: Demon | Occupation: Head Architect of the Good Place
Likes: His friends, humanity, office supplies, music
Dislikes: Injustice, fire squids, loneliness
Traits: Creative, dedicated, petty
Trivia: Michael once spent a year living on Earth

[Michael is a charming and friendly old gentleman, who insists that the "demon" part of his profile must be either a mistake or some cruel jab. The Head Architect part is an exaggeration too, he'll admit, but it's only the demon part that is outright impossible.

From the start, he goes out of his way to befriend people, and talks often about how to avoid any violence. He's enchanted by humans in particular, though he doesn't seem to understand them that well - he seems very honest, to the point where he often makes mean comments without realizing, and tends to get caught up on the minutae of life among humans and miss bigger-picture concerns.

But he means well. Obviously. It's his entire job to care for humans!]

Penny Polendina | RWBY

[in4apounding]

Name: Penny Polendina | Champion Cutting Edge
Age: Yes | Species: Artificial Human | Occupation: Huntress, Maiden
Likes: Friendship, fighting, Ruby
Dislikes: Grimm, magnets, robophobia
Traits: Outgoing, curious, protective
Trivia: Penny made it to the singles round of Vytal Festival Tournament; unfortunately her fight came down to the wire and was highly divisive.

[Super outgoing and cheerful from day one, though it probably takes a few rounds of memory regains for her to stop insisting that the age and species sections of her profile must be really weird typos. Almost certainly tries attacking your Overseers or Hosts or Monobear or what have you at least once, and goes into a deep funk for a few days when it utterly fails to do anything.]

[Frequently patrols at night, and tries to check in on everyone on a regular basis to make sure they're as okay as can be expected, but it's pretty obvious things are wearing on her as the weeks go on.]

Shard the Metal Sonic | Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics preboot)

[sharddrive]

Name: Shard | Champion Comeback
Age: It's Complicated | Species: Metal Sonic | Occupation: Jack of All Trades
Likes: Speed, winning, chili dogs, Nicole
Dislikes: Losing, Eggman, isolation, being buried alive
Traits: Brash, reckless, protective, solitary
Trivia: Shard has been destroyed at least three times.

[Frequently heckles the people running the game, even more frequently complains about the power-nerfing in place. Very slow to integrate with the group; probably has been caught multiple times hanging just outside of any gatherings taking place, watching the proceedings. A little too competitive during any team-building exercises or challenges.]

[Surprisingly useful during investigations and trials, both due to perfect robotic recall and a tendency to annoy people into accidental confessions or inconsistencies.]

[Definitely doesn't care about anyone here but himself, really. Any appearances to the contrary are just misunderstandings and you definitely shouldn't read things into it.]