Zirkel

A social deduction game for 4–12 guests, shut in a Victorian mansion at night. The living draw a ritual by hand on the floor; the dead have no voice of their own and speak by borrowing a living mouth.

Download for Windows The newest build, v0.6.4

4–12

players

first person

Voice

heard through the house

Alpha

and changing weekly

Eight guests seated round the chalk Pentagram in the drawing room while one is lifted over it in a Banishing — The Circle in the drawing room: a guest is Banished over the Pentagram.

A round

Possession makes speech itself unreliable, so the question of the round stops being who did it and becomes did you actually say that.

Wandering

Most of the round. The living go from room to room drawing sigils at the Ritual sites; the dead drift through the walls, listen, Possess and rattle things. People die here, and evidence is made.

Incident

A body has been found, or somebody called the Circle at the Pentagram. The house is told, the Wandering stops, and every living guest is gathered.

III

Circle

The living sit round the Pentagram, talk and vote. One of them may be Banished, or nobody. Then the doors open again.

Who is in the house

Guests

the living

No powers of their own: draw Wards, watch, report, vote.

Medium

the living

Alone perceives the Shades, and the signs of a Possession.

Cultists

secretly for the dead

Mark the living, strike once with a Dagger, open a channel to a Shade. They know each other.

Restless Shades

the dead, for the living

Help the living by Possessing them and rattling the house.

Vengeful Shades

the dead, against them

Disembody the living while a Hunger stands. Every dead Cultist comes back as one.

Nobody leaves a round early: whoever dies comes back as a Shade, and which side it is on is decided at the death.

The standard sigils

Sigils are drawn in chalk, in public, by hand, and only legible once finished. The living win when enough Wards stand at once; a Curse never counts towards them.

Wards

SanctuaryProtects the room it is drawn in.

VoiceLets a Restless Shade speak through a living player.

TrialShows its drawer one of the living, and whether a Cultist — sometimes wrongly.

GuardTurns one deadly blow aside from whoever drew it.

Curses

DaggerArms the Cultist who drew it for a single kill.

HungerLets a Vengeful Shade Disembody one of the living.

WhisperLets a Vengeful Shade speak through a living player.

SummoningThe whole house is told the floor. Scrub it in time, or the Vengeful win.

The house

The dining room under its chandelier, the table laid, a bay window beyond — The dining room, laid for dinner.

The stair hall: parquet, a lantern under an arch, the foot of the staircase — The stair hall, a Ritual site's ring on the wall.

The room screen's parlour stage: a settee, a lit fireplace, portraits and a long-case clock — The room screen, where guests gather before a round.

The mansion on its hill at night, trees in moonlight — The mansion on its hill, by moonlight.

How the builds are faring

crashes, 7 days

crashes, 30 days

ever reported

No game has reported a crash yet.

A game that did not quit cleanly offers its log at the next launch; these are the ones players chose to send.

Version	Reports, 30 days
Nothing reported in the last thirty days.