Four times a year — on Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasad, and Samhain — the fae of Boadicea’s Tomb and the Fallen Castle gather for a hurling match between the two counties, in a tradition that dates from before the Resurgence. The location is chosen by the winner of the previous match, with no restriction other than that it must be within the bounds of their territory. The winning side gains possession of the physical trophy (an enormous and elaborately engraved silver wine bowl) for the season, as well as getting to choose the site for the next match; it is not unusual for the count or countess to grant favors to especially excellent players.

The match is usually accompanied by a festival and carnival, as well as a feast and masquerade ball for both teams — all of which are opportunities for the host or hostess to present their realms in the best possible light. As of game start, Boadicea’s Tomb had won the Chalice each of the last five times, but the sudden retirement of their star player, a sidhe noble known only by his moniker of “The Prince in the Grey Jerkin”, was thought to put the Tomb’s recent dominance very much in doubt.

IC Rules

We aren’t going to lay out a definitive set of IC rules; that’s just an invitation to arguments. For the most part, mortal rules for hurling apply. The Kithain referees permit a somewhat more physical style of play than is usually acceptable in the real world, but it’s still a sport and not a brawl: players aren’t allowed to just straight-up attack one another. Hard fouls and questionable tackles are part of the game, but players who push things too far — and sometimes players who just have bad timing or get unlucky — can be shown yellow or red cards for unsafe play.

Using cantrips or Unleashings to improve yourself or your team is allowed as long as it’s done off the field of play. Using Arts during play is a foul that normally results in a red card; use of Arts (even off the field) to directly affect the other team is forbidden. It’s perfectly legal to talk the opposition’s star half-forward into a trip to Hawaii the night before the game and then leave them there with no way to get home, but using Wayfare to teleport them there will get the perpetrator (and their team) sanctioned. The count and countess jointly arbitrate any questionable shenanigans, and are usually disinclined to let anyone get away with something that they wouldn’t be willing to accept being done to their team.

In-Game Results

• In the inaugural in-game match, on Imboc 2025, the Tomb beat the Castle by a score of 4-12 to 3-6, thanks to highly physical (and effective) play by the North that saw no fewer than six South London players hauled off the field with injuries.
• The 2025 Beltane match was much more closely contested, and saw the Castle hold a narrow lead at the half before the Tomb stormed back to win by a single point, 3-10 to 2-12.

Participating

PC participation in matches is not just allowed, it’s actively encouraged. Characters may choose to play in the match itself, and may also put forth efforts to improve their side’s prospects outside the match — training players on their team, casting cantrips, locating Treasures, sabotaging the opposition, and so on. Typically, staff will post to the in-game bulletin board and to +events a week or two before the date, of the actual match, and players may then submit +requests declaring their intent to play or contribute in other ways. This can be as simple as saying “I’d like to play in the upcoming match!” or as complex as detailing an elaborate plan to keep an NPC opposition star out of the match. Please read the “How Matches Are Resolved” section below before doing submitting a request.

How Matches Are Resolved

Staff handles match resolution using an abstract system that takes into account various advantages and disadvantages peculiar to the participating teams. We don’t use the standard World of Darkness rules (for combat or otherwise), and therefore things that change a character’s statistics (or even a whole team’s statistics) will usually not impact match results in direct proportion to them. Put another way, if you find a way to raise your character’s Strength by 5, that will impact the results, but it will probably not do so by literally adding another 5 dice to their team’s dice pool; we aren’t literally rolling attack and defense pools behind our metaphorical GM screen.

The system does provide some detail on the performance of individual PC participants. A character might do any, all, or none of the following during each half of a match:

1. Score or prevent a goal (“into the net”)
2. Score or prevent a point (“through the posts”)
3. Be removed from play (either by injury or by a red card or multiple yellow cards)

If you don’t achieve any of these results, that doesn’t mean you aren’t involved in the game — you’re still out there passing, taking or blocking shots, making assists, and so forth, it’s just that in this half you haven’t made any plays that are dramatic enough to make it into the hypothetical highlight film. In general, the details are up to the players; we’ll let you know if, for instance, the opposing team hasn’t scored any goals and therefore there aren’t any for you to prevent, or if your team is going on a tremendous scoring run and therefore you’re likely to have racked up an assist or two.

Our goals in designing the hurling resolution system were fourfold:

1. It should be fast — ideally, fast enough that matches can be resolved either on the spot or with very short notice.
2. It should provide not just a winner but a margin of victory — was it close or was it a runaway victory?
3. It should allow us to call out participating PCs who excelled (or who did very poorly).
4. Ideally, it should produce somewhat realistic results compared to real-world hurling.

We have intentionally not detailed the specifics of how it works: we want to encourage players to focus on the story of the Chalice matches and the narrative around them, rather than worrying too much about a single die here or there.

As with much of the game, the hurling resolution system is a work in progress, and we are likely to tweak various elements over time in order better achieve the above goals. However, we won’t make changes during a match, or after players have begun submitting requests for the upcoming match.