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Kassiopeia
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Jyväskylä, Finland
Jul 2001
time: 07:20
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Mafia 27: Bohemian Mafia
or, Medieval Murder Mystery
Prologue
Five years ago, in 1301, the young prince Vovan, son of Vovan II of Bohemia, was crowned the King of Hungary based on an old and obscure claim. However, only two Hungarian princes out of over a dozen recognized the claim. Soon the second one of them too started to support Vovan's antiking, Charles Robert of Anjou. As tension in the kingdom grew, the teenaged sovereign grew frightened and asked his father to come get him out. Vovan II raised an army, marched to Prague, rescued his son holed up in the city, and left a regent in charge of things.
Back in Bohemia, Vovan II suddenly fell ill and finally died four years later, in 1305. Vovan III was crowned King of Bohemia, and he relinquished his title of King of Hungary to the Duke of Lower Bavaria.
But in 1300 Vovan II had been crowned King of Poland by warring Polish petty nobles after he had conquered the duchy of Krakow. This claim was now being contested, and while Vovan III did not want to rule Hungary, he did want to rule Poland. He raised an army, and headed out to Poland in 1306 to seize the throne that was his by birth.
Now it's August 1306. The entourage and armies of Vovan III are resting in the town of Olomouc in Moravia - the area that's nowadays known as the area of Morava in eastern Czech Republic. This is where our gloomy tale begins, as the royal entourage settles in at the local inn for a night's sleep.
code:
mafia
| Name
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Title
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Status
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| 1. Rah
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Royal Historian
|
Alive
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| 2. Nikolai
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Count of Luxembourg |
Alive |
| 3. Skanky Burns
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Chief of the Royal Bodyguard
|
Alive |
| 4. Snowflake
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Princess of Bohemia, sister of Vovan III |
Alive |
| 5. Spaced Cowboy
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Marshal General of the Bohemian Army
|
Alive |
| 6. Dauphin
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Bishop of Olomouc
|
Alive |
| 7. Ljube-ljcvetko
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Royal Spymaster
|
Alive |
| 8. Adagio
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Manservant
|
Alive |
| 9. DrSpike
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Royal Healer
|
Alive |
| 10. Jamski
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Count of Moravia
|
Alive |
| 11. Whoha
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Royal Cook
|
Alive |
| 12. Hercules
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Courtier in Charge of Foods and Wares |
Alive |
| 13. Jonny
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Food Taster
|
Alive |
| 14. Theben
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Duke of Eastern Bohemia, cousin of Vovan III
|
Alive |
| 15. Reismark
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Royal Steward |
Alive |
| 16. DarkCloud
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Ambassador of Albert I, King of the Romans
|
Alive |
| 17. Sparrowhawk
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Sparrowhawk of Habsburg, Prince of the Romans |
Alive |
| 18. Joncha
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Chief Advisor |
Alive |
| 19. Tuberski
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Royal Diplomat
|
Alive |
| 20. Ben Kenobi
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Archbishop of Bohemia
|
Alive |
| 21. duke o' york
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Duke of Lower Northern Middle Bohemia, nephew of Vovan's second cousin |
Alive |
| 22. Paddy the Scot
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Lord of Pomerania
|
Alive |
| 23. gjramsey
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Duke of Carinthia, husband of the daughter of Vovan II
|
Alive |
| 24. Vovan
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Vovan III, King of Bohemia
|
Alive |
Chapter 1
Vovan III was mortified as he woke up that night, the 6th of August, with an overwhelming sense of dread. He rushed out of his room to the hallway of the disheleved inn the entourage was sleeping in. He felt incredibly hot and could not breathe - he had to get outside. Around the inn, Sir Biff the Understudy was patrolling the surroundings in full plate mail.
"Majesty", Sir Biff acknowledged the presence and knelt down as quickly as he could in his equipment.
"Get up, get up. I'm going have a little stroll."
"Majesty, with all due respect, it is not -"
"Yes, yes, I know. Yet, I do not find myself caring one bit. Just... go do your patrols, Sir Biff."
The trepidating king walked to the woods nearby.
After some minutes had passed, Sir Biff felt his bowels disagreeing with him in a most disgraceful manner.
Having conducted his business at the pit, he pondered whether the king had returned. It had been quite a while already, but when he checked the king's room, it was empty. He had no choice but to alert the bodyguard and the rest of the entourage.
Two hours of the local and the royal guards canvassing the nearby forest was enough. The king of Bohemia, Vovan III, lay dead on a small clearing. DrSpike, the royal physician, examined the body with Chief Advisor Joncha, Sir Skanky of the Royal Guard, Marshal General Spaced and the head of the town guard, Kassiopeia.
"Are you going to handle the corpse? What manner of quackery is this?" Sir Skanky asked of DrSpike. "Certainly your abilities are useless at this stage?"
"I have studied the art of examining the dead and their surroundings. Most unusual things can be discovered with some simple logic", DrSpike explained. "Observe - the land around him is soft, but there are few footprints. I would say two people were here when the act happened, Vovan and the killer. His Majesty also appears to have fallen down on his back. The killer was someone he was familiar with."
"What makes you think of that?" General Spaced asked.
"Again, observe." DrSpike carefully turned the corpse around. "This is most likely what caused the death. He was stabbed in the side. The wound, here, implies that he was struck with a small knife, perhaps a dagger, from a low angle and from the right side. I surmise, thus, that the killer was standing in front of the king, slid under the cover of darkness his hand, with a blade, to his side, and caught him completely unawares. Probably by a quick stroke, the wound is rather deep, straight and narrow."
"The king was face to face with the assassin. Quite clearly a man of his stature would treat so only a person from his own entourage", Kassiopeia concluded. "Lord Joncha, has anyone of the company disappeared over the night? Or Count Jamski, who also slept in the house, for that matter?"
"No one has vanished, save for His Majesty of course."
"That in turn means that the killer is one of the residents of the inn. That includes you, sirs. I must insist that if we are to catch the killer, you must be isolated to the inn, with my men keeping watch so that no one can escape until the guilty one is discovered."
And so was done. To reach a decision that could be accepted by everyone, or at least the most, and with no clear high authority amongst them with the sovereign's tragic passing (and heritance being the muddled affair it was at the time), it was decided that the twenty-three would take a vote. The one with the most votes would be convicted and beheaded on the town square immediately.
Time to vote!
Teh weekend approaches us, methinks it's prudent to have the deadline on Monday.
The story is based on some recorded history. The King of Bohemia, Wenceslaus III, was killed in August 1306 in Olomouc surrounded by unknown circumstances after having left Bohemia to claim the throne of Poland, and after relinquishing the throne of Hungary and after his father Wenceslaus II had perished. Some of the other nobility have an equal in the Europe of the era as well; people who are connected to the Permyslid family, which Vovan/Wenceslaus III was the last king of. I'm going to be making stuff up pretty freely from now on, though.
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22-10-2004 04:27
Maybe I'll make it out alive out of the first round.
(I'm getting ruined!
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