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AKTAK-RU
This game was invented to help young lutrai learn teamwork, aggression management, and how to handle loss. It is played on sand or short turf, and fields four players on each team – three attackers and a defender. A heavy rubber spheroid is knocked around with specialized (often highly-decorated) aktak sticks in an effort to destroy targets. It combines aspects of hockey, luchadore, and Missile Command. The attackers are the heels, booed and hissed at by the crowds of either side, while the real heroes are the defenders, who attempt to block the shots with stick, shield, or mask. Each defender protects sandcastle cities built by their team's younger members, with a 'Capitol' stick that needs to be knocked over.
The game is a phenomenal misunderstanding of the Automatic War, though there are elements within it that show some measure of just how bad it was. The rubber sphere represents the AM-B01 gravity bomb, the most terrible conventional weapon ever made, while the attackers, dressed as 'spirits of war' have avian or aircraft themes to their masks. Defenders, on the other hand, have shield and anti-aircraft imagery stitched into their outfits.
Striker: Those with the sticks will attempt to outmaneuver each other with the ball in order to approach striking distance of the sandcastles. Their objective is to shoot the ball at the sandcastles in order to knock them down. The opposing attack teams are the ‘heels’, so to speak, often acting out a villainous on-field performance in their sinister masks. They destroy all of the hard work done by the build teams, and their shots are met with gasps of dismay. Attackers need to be fast, strong, and alert.
Defender: The only one allowed to defend the cities, so they carry a round buckler. They’re the star of the team, though few clamor for the deeply-disadvantaged role. A weak hero may take the blame for failing to protect his team’s territory, though a strong one will earn the wildest cheers with nothing more than shield and grit. The hero is expected to merely diminish damage or interfere with shot accuracy rather than prevent every hit. The lutrai name is 'aktakat', attack-stopper.
Builder: This is a team of younger players who build the sandcastle cities at either end of the playfield. These naïve interpretations of the ancient world are built within a hoop-shaped template of pre-determined size (small, medium, large). They are inspected before play begins. The build teams don’t actually play on the field, they just do their best to construct cities that aren’t easy to knock down.
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