An Elementary Guide to Jioball

Here's an explanation of the sport Naaro and I (Lich) cooked up…

Explanation

Wooden boards tied to the wrists...An oval-shaped field, covered with 8 holes. Teams of 6: 3 Dofloktas, 2 Bladigas, and 1 Myndika. (3 Deflectors, 2 Bladers, 1 Minder)

The Dofloktas have the wooden boards tied to their wrist, and their job is to keep a ball about the size of an orange called a Zelindrika in the air. If a team drops a ball into any of the 8 holes, they lose a point. The Bladigas are supposed to try and force Dofloktas to drop balls in the holes, armed with talon wristblades and their physical combat skills to do the job. The Zelindrika can be picked up and thrown back into the air if it lands on the ground. The Myndika's job is to use a net to catch Zelindrikas about to fall into holes and toss them back into play. Myndikas can't be hurt by the Bladigas.

It'd be split into 7 Sigmats (Segments), and the team with the fewest points lost would win at the end.

Two variants: Lethal Jioball and Non-lethal Jioball. No actual scoring, so it would be negative scoring. In Non-lethal, the Bladigas have dulled, natural talons. In Lethal, they have metallic, sharp ones, and there's pretty much guaranteed to be a dead Doflokta on the field when a Sigmat ends. Fortunately, Lethal has an added player on each team: the Restara. As you might guess from the name, they revive downed players at the end of each Sigmat.

Oh, and it gets really interesting if there's a tie. Jioball Overtime, in both variants, is like this: Each team sends out the player of their choice, either by skill or by lottery. The player has a Bladiga wristblade on one arm, and a Doflokta board on the other. The Zelindrika is replaced by the Jioball, which is about the size of a basketball, and will explode if it lands anywhere besides one of the holes. In Non-lethal, Overtime is merely a continuation of the game for one more Sigmat (and doesn't have the Jioball). Non-lethal is never played in the Jioball equivalent of the "playoffs" because Non-lethal OT has to end. Lethal OT can go on forever if the two players are good enough. If the Jioball explodes, then both players run a high risk of dying. If one dies, then the survivor wins. If neither dies, then the game continues with a new Jioball. If both of them die, than the one that was thrown farther from the location of the explosion is declared the loser. In such a case, both will be revived after the decision. However, any player can express that he does not wish to be revived before the beginning of the game. That doesn't happen much, unless the person is asking for death, is a slave player (never seen anymore), or for whatever other reason.

Arena Configuration

Seeing as the Zelindrika and the Jioball have a habit of hitting the wall, the seats of the arena are also set up differently. They're placed on the roof, which is protected from the Zelindrika by Kamar forcefields. The audience is strapped in, and the seats are inclined down toward the playfield. If the Zelindrika or the Jioball near the forcefield, they are repulsed and sent back to the playfield. Gravity adjustments make it really quite comfortable, another miracle of the forcefield.

The officials, as far as deciding whether or not the ball enters the hole and all, man floating platforms in the "non-play" area surrounding the oval. They're also trained in teleportation, speed increase and the like, if worse should come to worst.

Penalties

There's also a few penalties. Attacking the Myndika is one. Others include tossing players into the holes intentionally; using the Zelindrika/Jioball with intent to harm another player, i.e., throwing it at someone; and a non-Bladiga intentionally trying to harm another player. Normal penalties result in the offending player being removed from play for 3 minutes. More serious penalties will result in the removal of the Myndika for 2 minutes, much worse than losing a Bladiga or Doflokta.

Other Information

Each Sigmat is 10 minutes long, making for a gametime total of 70 minutes. There are also 6 5-minute breaks between Sigmats, making for a total of 30 break minutes. Barring a tie, Jioball games last, in all, 100 minutes.