Maruzjat

Tradition

Originally played with the thorns of the Soyuchka plant, native to Blotaya. The Soyuchka has a curious property of forming a string between close thorn. The string is fire, held just of the plant by the thorns as pitches. Depending on the proximity of the thorns, each thorn’s thread changes in thickness and intensity, growing thin the further they are apart. Any creature unfortunate enough to try and touch the plant would be badly burned.
Another oddity of the Soyuchka plant is its rivalry with other Soyuchka plants. If two grow too close together, the thicker threads block out the thinner ones. This renders the plant with thinner threads vulnerable to herbivores.
Modern pieces are crafted from toy makers and use colored wind to connect the pieces rather than fire. The wind also help differentiate the players pieces. Before the player would either have to mark their pieces or dock their thorns to be different sizes.
Maruzjat was traditionally a game to plan moves during combat. Eventually, Maruzjat became a popular time passer across the map.

Components

Board

The game is highly flexible with where it is to be played. As long as there is a surface the pieces can stand upright on, most anywhere can be used as a board. The only caveat to this is that the players have to set their own boundaries for the playspace.

Pieces

With either natural pieces or custom made, each player gets half of the games pieces. Most games are played with 20 pieces if the players wish for a longer game they can add as many pieces as the board would allow.
To keep the pieces from creating thread to the opponent's, the pieces must either be of different plants or from different sets.

Players

While games tend to be played one on one, there is technically no limit to how many players may participate.

Gameplay

Steps

The first to move is the one who initiated the game.
Each player take turns placing down pieces, waiting a moment for the threads to form.
When one player creates an enclosed area, this is the acquisition of land. Another player can take away this land by severing the threads holding it together. But this in turn would give them smaller amounts of land. So it’s a play to deny the other players acquisition of land and build your own.

Winning

When all Pieces have been placed, the players count how much land they have. The player with the most land wins.