The Ball Game

(• • Life) Dead Magic 76

Sometimes a sacrifice just has to go off without a hitch; that's when you start pulling hearts out of athletes. The Aztecs and Mayas made their slaves play a soccer-like game with a huge rubber ball; both teams were ultimately sacrificed, but the winners were pampered first. Perhaps the game amused the gods, or just worked up the competitive juices, but the players made worthy sacrifices.

In modern nights, several groups have adapted this ritual to their paradigm, The Caballeros Aguila, a Tijuanna street gang, holds victims at gunpoint and forces them to play football in an alley before they sacrifice them to Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec god of war and death.

System: If the successes rolled on this extended ritual exceed the difficulty of the subsequent sacrifice, lower the difficulty of that sacrifice by 1 if it involves a participant in the game. The sacrifice is rolled separately. A botch raises the difficulty of the sacrifice, or means that the gods didn't enjoy the game....