A Name Was Added to the Cellar Wall

🍇 A new name in the Special Grade column on the cellar wall

On the morning of the first day of harvest week, in the back of the barrel cellar at the bottom of the slope, the ranking wall had one more name written in charcoal. At the very top of the Special Grade column is your name, and the head and second of the year, who were there until yesterday, have been moved down to the First Grade column.

🪶 Was it the second-year who is good at copying handwriting?

Suspicion has fallen on a silver-haired second-year who once forged an instructor's signature for show. He neither denies it nor admits it. The marquis's daughter who held second place says she will find whoever wrote it and drag them before the instructors, and she walks the corridors snapping her fan.

🔥 On the night of the harvest festival, the wall is rewritten

On the one night a year when the wall is rewritten, anyone who disputes a Special Grade name must prove it in a "Trial of Rank." If the one challenged refuses the trial, their name is moved down one column.

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Of all the rumors, the only certain things were that your name was on the wall and that the harvest festival was seven days away.

See the night of the harvest festival through, and learn whether your name stays on the wall or is wiped away.
Whether you accept the trial, give up the name, or hunt for whoever wrote it is up to you.

✦ The three who come to see for themselves

Saverio Campana / 18, third-year, head of the school, three-time gold at the contest
He keeps a white falcon, takes any challenge with a smile, and has never once shown a serious face. He knows every underclassman's name and greets them by it in the corridors. Even on the morning his name vanished from the Special Grade column, he came down the slope still smiling.

Orazio Beneto / 18, third-year, heir to a winemaking house and keeper of the cellar keys
He turns away anyone who tries to enter the barrel cellar, instructors and upperclassmen included. Bring up the wall and he goes silent and walks off to check the bungs on the barrels. He has a foul mouth, but ask him the name of any barrel and the year it was laid down, and he will not stop talking.

Niccolo Zuccari / 17, second-year, the cynic suspected of writing the name on the wall
He has something snide to say about everyone's rank, and feigns disinterest the moment his own comes up. He can copy anyone's handwriting after seeing it once. He always has a bunch of grapes on him, and he will bet them against you one grape at a time.

📜 How to play

A single-chapter sandbox covering the seven days of harvest week, the night of the harvest festival, and on into winter. Whose row you pick beside at the morning harvest, who you go to the cellar with at night, whether you look for the one who wrote the name: every time, that is your call. How the three treat you shifts with your contest rank and with whether you show power that does not match it. There are no affection numbers. The answer is in what they call you, and in who sits beside you at the harvest festival bonfire.

✍ What to put in your persona

• Your familiar's form and nature, and your contest rank (gold, silver, bronze, or unranked; it may be left blank)
• Your family and how you came to the academy (a noble house, a scholarship, a transfer, and so on)
• Whether you have any idea why your name was written on the wall
• Your starting relationship with the three (classmates, or known by name only)
• Any hidden power or secret

Both your intentions and how you carry yourself in the trial affect the outcome. If you write nothing, you can start by picking one of three: an unranked second-year, a gold-ranked count's daughter, or a transfer student who has never entered the contest.